Protecting your adventure/dual-sport motorcycle is a similar concept to wearing helmets. We must wear them for our own safety but it’s also cool to wear something that looks awesome and does not weigh a ton.
The very same concept is true about crash bars. In KTM’s 1090/1190R Adventure case, it’s only upper crash bars since the “R” models are factory equipped with lower crash bars.
So, why am I comparing helmets to upper crash bars? Obviously first and foremost it’s the protective feature, then we could go deeper with the analysis and consider the weight. Since both upper crash bars and helmets make us and our bikes top heavy, we must choose something lighter, rather than heavy. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Well, not to everyone. I’m not writing to compare our KTM adventure upper crash bars to the “other guys”, I’m simply just letting you know that we have made the decision to construct our upper crash bars from the same exact tubing as the factory crash bars. It’s due to a few things:
A) upper crash bars are rarely exposed to the same impact as the lower crash bars
B) larger diameter tubing does not provide better protection, especially when it lacks proper mounting points. Put it this way, would you put an oversized roof on thin walls and foundation? Not unless there’s addition support for the oversized roof, right? I’ve seen 25mm and even 27mm diameter upper bars mounted on the factory 22mm diameter crash bars with no support near the top end!
C) mounting and support are crucial. All existing KTM Adventure crash bars are of the floating design. It just means that they’re not supported up top but mounted strictly on the factory crash bars. Should one drop his/her KTM, the upper bars would shift and could easily crush the plastic. Something they’re actually supposed to protect.
So what do we have in response to all this?
Let me explain it thoroughly in the video below!
Now that you’ve watched the video, you may have also noticed that we created a very convenient spot on each end of the cross brace for auxiliary lights! Coincidentally. They’d be nicely tucked away, too, thus not exposed to damage, should you drop your KTM 1090/1190R.
Our upper crash bars’ mounting clamps also sit lower and vertically. The latter is important in supporting the upper crash bars.
We’re giving these upper crash bars thorough testing and for that we’ve teamed up with @rodeo.cowboy (Nick Livinsgton) on Instagram but you can also check out his website Wide Open ADV (under construction by Related Grey , founder of WLF Enduro) and Traction eRag‘s epic crew will abuse a KTM 1090R ADV and our skid plate and maybe (somehow?!) our upper crash bars.
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