I finally picked up a G2 Throttle Cam from KTMtwins.com. The 990 has a pretty twitchy throttle, especially at low RPMs. Rolling 'on' and 'off' throttle, just at that transition, the bike can really buck around -- this has been endlessly discussed in the Orange Crush forum at advrider.com, and a lot of people said the G2 helped. I'm using the '400' cam (marked "K400" on the cam itself, but also referred to as the "G400" for whatever reason).

I've found that the 400 cam really helps -- the twitchiness is still there, but reduced. I think it's also really important to tweak the throttle cables when you install it. If I left a little 'dead spot' at the closed position, that seemed to help a lot. When I tightened it up so there wasn't a dead spot, the bucking returned. A little bit of slack when the throttle is closed seems to really help buffer the closing phase of the throttle, and it feels less like the throttle slams completely shut. After tweaking the cables while riding around for a couple hours this morning, I'm really happy with the outcome -- smooth throttle response down low, and it rolls nicely into the tons-of-power throttle phase, which everybody loves. I'm back to wanting to ride this thing all day every day.

Along with the lights, I replaced the top tripleclamp with a Scotts clamp and a SUB mount steering stabilizer. The new bar towers are slightly higher and forward than stock... since I'm short, I need the bars back a bit, so I also added some Rox vibration damped risers. Hopefully this will also help with the numbness I get in my right hand on long rides.

Installed a pair of Trail Tech MR11 HID lights today. These are compact HID lights with a built-in ballast so there's no extra box to hide anywhere.



Each light emits about 500 lumens, similar to what a standard 55 watt halogen headlight emits, but these lights only consume 13 watts each. So, for just 26 watts you get around 1,000 lumens, like having two more headlights.

Here is the stock headlight:








Here they are with the clear silicon covers:








Here they are with the amber silicon covers:

I bought a Caribou luggage rack and cases. On my last two bikes (KLR 650 and then an F650 Dakar) I had Pelican 1550 cases on a Happy Trails rack. The cases on the KLR was just bolted to the rack, so they were secure but I couldn't remove them very easily. On the F650 I had a cobbled-together homebrew mounting system that worked, but was not very easy to get the cases on and off the bike.

With the 990, I finally broke down and bought a kit. Caribou cases are made here in Boulder, Colorado so it was easy to go look at them, and since they use Pelican 1550 cases I was pretty much hooked. Hopefully the rack turns out to be as sturdy as the Happy Trails rack, though I have my doubts.






I also picked up a set of SW-Motech engine guards, hopefully I won't have to test those out.

Rode from Boulder to Estes Park, over Trail Ridge Road to Granby, then north-west to Walden, down to Ft. Collins via Poudre Canyon, then back to Boulder. Just over 300 miles -- my first real day-ride on the new KTM. This thing is a rocket ship... it'll accelerate from 65 to 110 without even trying.


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Here's a gallery of pictures I took along the way.

Installed the KTM bar risers tonight. It's extremely important to torque the nylocks that compress the rubber bumpers inside the tripleclamp to 20Nm! That amount of torque keeps down the vibrations in the bars, and was the difference between a numb right hand and no problems.

I'm a little concerned that the combination of the KTM and Touratech risers will weaken the setup. The KTM risers appear to be very strong and seat securely into the tripleclamp and provide a strong base for the bar clamps. The Touratech risers seem less strong, I guess only time will tell. Hopefully I won't be testing the crash worthiness of this setup.

Went out for a few hundred miles on Sunday after spending the better part of Saturday doing electrical work.



I installed an ignition-switched relay to run 6 fused circuits kept in a Pelican 1010 case that sits in the little compartment on the top of the faux tank just behind the handlebars. Turned out to be a really clean install, since the ACC-2 accessory power circuit is easy to get to under the dash. I ran power and ground lines directly from the battery and used ACC-2 as the signal line to the relay. The 6-circuit fuse block from Napa and a standard 12v relay fit into the Pelican 1010 case with a little help from a Dremel.

I also replaced the stock handlebars and hand guards with Renthal Fatbars (bend number 608) and Acerbis Rally Pro handguards. This is the same setup I had on my F650 and it worked very well. I need to get some more rise on the handlebars, more even than the current 30mm Touratech risers I've got. I'm going to try and install the KTM 18mm risers in addition to these and see how that goes.

So-far, I've got the GPS, KTM Hard Equipment heated grips and a Gerbings outlet for my heated gear. Should make for some comfortable fall riding!

Next on the list is a remote control for the trip computer (so it can be operated without taking my hands off the bars) and a Signal Dynamics voltage meter installed in the dash.