Category Archives: Morocco

Quick Spin: 2025 KTM 390 Enduro R in Morocco

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For a bike with the world-weary A-word in its name, I wasn’t that impressed with the 390SW rental we tried in Morocco in early 2025 (left): a naked, low-barred road bike with tubed tyres. For unsupported trail touring it was the worst of all worlds.
Emerging from their their annus horribilis, for 2025 KTM have brought out a 390 Adventure X (below left) for just £5400, a higher and better sprung Adventure R for £6100, and an Enduro R trail bike for £5700 with the same R-level springs. Meanwhile the 2024 Adventures are currently being very heavily discounted from their formerly high prices and presumably, once they’re gone they’re gone.

390- Adventure X
390- Adventure R
390 Enduro R
MODELAdventure SW
(2024)		Adventure
(2024)		Adventure X
(2025)		Adventure R
(2025)		Enduro R
(2025)
Weight170kg173176176165
Tank14.5 litres14.514149
Seat855mm855825870890
Wheels17/1917/19 cast TL17/19 cast TL18/2118/21
Suspension170/177mm170/177200/200230/230230/230
Price UK£5600£5200£5400£6100£5700

All data above copied from KTM UK and unverified. Both 2024 models are heavily discounted

Here we have Bob’s brand new 390 Enduro R with a 9-litre tank and a 890mm (35″) seat height. It’s supposedly only 5kg lighter than an Adv SW, but has more and better suspension travel, a basic display, all costs nearly the same.

Bob’s spanking Indian-made Enduro R arrived just in time for him to run it in, sling some throwovers onto an Indian-made rack and roll it into Simon’s van. A few days later it got rolled out near the start of my new High Atlas Traverse at the Tizi n Test pass. I was on my 250 Serow (830mm seat, 9.6L tank, 139kg wet) and Simon had his over-bored 350 TTR (890 seat, 14L tank, 145kg wet).

Bob is 6′ 4″ (1.93m) so the yard-high Enduro R didn’t really bother him. I realise it’s actually the same seat height as my old 300L from two bikes ago. A only 6′ 1″ no wonder it bugged me. He brought an 11-litre fuel bag which we needed a couple of times. I seem to recall he got up to mid-70s mpg (27kpl) which gavce a pretty good 250-km range a tad better than Simon’s carb’d TTR, but way behind my Serow which got well over 100mpg a couple of times. The KTM makes twice the power of the Serow.

I had a quick spin on revised Stage N of the TMT for as long as it took Bob to needlessly fall off my Serow on a switchback. Sadly, my bike had that tendency (more here soon) so with better suspension it’s no surprise I liked the KTM more than my Serow, but not as much as Simon’s custom-barrelled 350 TTR. The masses of extra power didn’t really come into it on the trail.

Good suspension rolled over rough stuff with no deflection or correction needed by the rider, the cable clutch was much nicer, and the bike quickshifts up and down from new (no unlocking required). I found this worked better on the dirt than on the road a few days later, but by then my ankle wasn’t pivoting like it should. For once I could stand up properly, and for a KTM the seat looked hard but felt pretty good and Bob never complained (I wore – and needed – Moto Skiveez most days on the Serow). A bit of air could have been lost from the tyres for a softer ride all round. I didn’t get into the KTM on the road so much. Everything felt typically KTM-hard and Bob was often shaking out his vibration-numbed hands, though I didn’t notice this on my brief spin at <100kph. A few more miles may have changed my opinion.

If it was me, I’d probably get the bargain-priced Adventure X at £5400; it’s lower, has a bigger tank plus a screen and tubeless cast wheels. Would I soon regret the unadjustable fork, basic emulsion shock and 19-inch front over the nimble Enduro R or full spec Adventure R? We may never know, but for £6100 the full-spec Adventure R is more bike for your money if doing more challenging dirt riding and weighs 20 kilos less than my 450MT, but lacks the charismatic engine. Apart from the inner tubes, for easy trails and roads, I’d say the X marks the spot.

Yamaha Serow ready for the High Atlas Traverse

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Serow index page

It didn’t take much, but my 250 Serow Touring is ready to wheel into a van and head down to Morocco for a recce of the High Atlas Traverse (left).
The H.A.T is a new route I’ve cooked up to parallel our very popular, coast-to-coast Trans Morocco Trail. When the H.A.T map and tracklogs are up, they’ll be hosted on the same TMT website.

Following the Atlas watershed over the highest motorable peaks and passes for 900km, the H.A.T will probably become harder than the TMT. With elevations exceeding 12,000′, we’re not certain every planned track will be passable, but that’s why they call it a recce. Whatever happens, my lithe, low-saddled Serow ought to be ideal for the task, joined by Simon on his TTR 333 and Bob on a brand new KTM 390 Enduro R to add some Vit C to the photos.
I’ll be posting the odd photo on the TMT Insta page and maybe elswhere. If it all pans out, the route will be online to download for free by the New Year.

The Men Who Ride Like Goats

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While scanning aerial mapping for new pistes in Morocco’s High Atlas I came across an intriguing possibility. A seemingly good track lead 25km off the N9 highway to the 2500-m Tizi Telouet pass on the High Atlas watershed (31.3372, -7.2663), a few miles east of the famous Tichka pass on the N9 trans Atlas. From that point southwards the way ahead became an obliterated mule path, but picked up rideable terrain in just two kilometres, with Telouet town visible nearby. Downhill on a light bike, walking where necessary, it might be doable, no? ‘Who wants to go first?’, I quipped on Twitter.

Like the grand old Duke of York and his 10,000 men, a column of pylons marches up and over the col, bound for the massive Nour solar plant, 50km away near Ouarzazate. You’d assume some sort of vehicle crawled over the slope to erect those pylons, but no service track is evident on the south side. Still, at the very least, riding the switchbacks up to the col for a quick look should be possible.

I mentioned this recce to a mate who’ll join me out there next week. He soon found some Spanish KTM-ers behind a YT channel called Enduro Aventura. They pulled off the Tizi Telouet descent (and a whole lot more) in 2002, filmed it all and capped it off with a tracklog on Wikiloc, classified as ‘Very Difficult’.
They call the Tizi Telouet ‘Collado Torretas’ or ‘tower/pylon col’? They confirm ‘the north face has been fixed with a track with a thousand curves and somewhat broken by the rain‘ but continue… ‘the south face on the way to Telouet is a narrow and broken trail with a lot of stones… This hill [trail] seems to be disappearing…‘. They speculate that the truncated northside track suggests a new road might get put in, but I’ve found tracks or roads often come to a dead halt at provincial boundaries, which this watershed is. The col was just an efficient direct route for the power cables from Nour to Marrakech.

Their 80-minute vid below is timed to start at the Collado Torretas stage (just a few minutes). It’s soon turns gnarly af (stills above). But scan any other random minute in their vid and you’ll see just what light and lightly-loaded KTMs (including 2T) can achieve off-road in the hands of a fit and determined crew. You’ll be staggered to see what these guys blithely ride over. Chapeau to Enduro Aventura I say! The Men who Ride like Goats. Me, I’ll take the long way round.

Fast forward to midsummer 2025, and Kriega have released a film of two guys riding over-bored, early 1980s Honda 125s on the even more sketchy Yagour Plateau, west of the Tichka pass, towards Toubkal mountain.
Trust Me? Thanks, maybe I’ll pass.