High speed wobble / head shake

On the way to see the races I noticed that the bike started to have the shakes at around 110 - 115 km/h. This was a new issue as it never happened with the Sahara 3s. The TKC 80s have now done around 2000 kms, but they still have plenty of thread left in my opinion.

The head shake on the 690 is an interesting phenomena as some people suffer from it and some people don't. It's usually "solved" by adjusting the suspension, adding a steering damper, changing tires etc. None of which seem to be the end all solution to the problem.

As I didn't have any tools or time to mess with the suspension I decided to check the tire pressures on the nearest gas station. The front had 1.2 bars and I decided to up the pressures (to 1.8) on the front first to see what happens.

Interestingly the head shake disappeared and the bike became instantly less twitchy at high speeds! You might want to try messing with the tire pressures first before buying expensive dampers etc.

ABOUT HEAD SHAKE

Reading the reports around the net from people experiencing head shake blames the problem on several different things or a combination of them. Which ones you believe in is up to you.

1. Bad tires: some tires when worn will start to induce head shake and some seem to do it even when new.

2. Incorrect tire pressures for high speeds. Raising front pressure made a big difference for me.

3. Suspension not adjusted correctly (preload, sag etc.)

4. The amount of load (luggage) on the bike and how it's placed. Mine seems more stable the more suff I pack on. This is ofcourse related to suspension setting.

5. The bike's steering geometry in general. (I don't agree as the problem is not with ALL the 690 Es)

6. Wheels not balanced correctly

7. Wheels not aligned correctly (rear especially)

8. Heavy inner tubes. I personally find that the heavy Michelin UHD tubes feel a lot different than regular thin ones and might very well be a contributing factor to the problem.

Many people attempt to fix the problem by installing a steering damper which in my opinion only mask the original problem and is not a proper fix.

Trip report

From the northern part of the old postal road

Roughly 1500kms of very varying roads in Northern Finland, Norway and Sweden. Last years trip was more of a sightseeing run partly because everyone didn't have the appropriate equipment to go off the paved roads. This time my buddy "Jack" had moved from a Versys to a Honda CRF250L so we could pretty much go anywhere we wanted as far as bikes go.

Last year we traveled up north under the cover of darkness by train and rode back down. This time we went by train both ways. Doing hundreds of miles of boring tarmac still didn't seem tempting and besides that we were yet again on a tight schedule.

strapped in again

The route

Thursday evening/night
Turku - Rovaniemi by train

All Friday
Rovaniemi - Kautokeino (Norway) by bikes

All Saturday
Kautokeino - Alta - Storslett by bikes

All Sunday
Storslett - Kaaresuvanto (Finland) by bikes

Monday
Kaaresuvanto - Rovaniemi by bikes

Monday afternoon/night
Rovaniemi - Turku by train

The good parts
Saturday, The old postal road from Kautokeino to Alta
Sunday, The mountain road from Birtavarre to the foothills of Halti / Guolasjávri
Sunday, The Kalkkoaivi road (an old wartime service road)

Friday

The train arrived at Rovaniemi some time after 10:00 AM. We unloaded the bikes, filled up and pulled away from the city. We tried to stay on the gravel as much as possible, but the friday's ride was honestly just a mandatory transition to get to Kautokeino, where we would be starting on the old postal road. We had ridden about half of the route last year going south. As before, mosquitoes were plentyfull and the roads a bit boring outside the few gravel stints. 

Once we arrived at Kautokeino Norway, the weather had cleared up and it was down right warm. Actually warmer than 1200 kms south where we started from. We checked in a hotel (Thon Hotel Kautokeino) and went for a short ride to look around and take some photos. We found an old decommissioned ski jumping tower on the river bank that was a good place to get a few photos of the area. 

Town of Kautokeino

After the short sightseeing We inhaled a couple of local kebabs, took a few beers and went to bed.

Thon hotel Kautokeino at the hilltop

Saturday

The old postal road to Alta starts 10 kms from Kautokeino so after only 15 mins from the hotel we were in business. We had high expectations of the road, that supposedly had some water crossings, beautiful scenery and challenging run down parts. The old postal road was the so called "main attraction" of this trip.

start of the postal road

The road began as pretty well maintained gravel road and continued as such for a good while. The scenery was good to begin with but improved still as the road progressed deeper into the wilderness. Nothing but fells, lakes and rivers as far as the eye could see. 

Pretty easy as bad roads go

Some rocky parts, but really not much of a challenge 

The only water crossing, the water seemed to be down 

The old postal road is cut in two by the tarmac main road leading to Alta. This southern part was the more challenging to ride, but the northern part had even better scenery.

Is it real adventure if you can stop for coffee half way through...?

The road itself was a bit of a let down in the sense that it never really got properly rough or difficult. I don' t know whether it was recently renovated or something, but we could have ridden all of it with much "lesser" bikes. The only river crossing was also rather tame didn't really provide much of a challenge. That said, the old postal road was certainly one of the greatest rides of my life.  

Some shots from the northern part

reindeer gates, one of many

a perfect place to camp 

Alta - Storslett

After the postal road, we grabbed a quick lunch and continued on to Storslett where we would spend the night. The Norwegians are really making an effort as far as the roads. There was large scale roadwork being done on many parts of the road.

Some shots from the Alta - Storslett road

Sunday

Sunday had two routes planned. First we would ride to the foothills of Halti from the Norwegian side and after that we would ride the Kalkkoaivi road near Kaaresuvanto in Finland. Halti is the highest fell (we don't have any real mountains) in Finland so it's sort of big thing for Finns. For Norwegians it's probably not that big of a deal as they have real mountains everywhere you look. The Kalkkoaivi road is an old german built service road from WW2 time. Nowadays it's mostly used by fishermen and hikers going to the fells, rivers and lakes.

The road to Halti / Guolasjávri (lake Guolas) starts from a town called Birtavarre. There's still a 6 km hike to the mountain from where the road ends, but that's as close as you can get, legally at least. The fun part of the road starts after crossing a bridge over a gorge and the road is rather scenic all the way through. The roads is also in reasonably good condition and any family sedan will get through just fine. 

the bridge over the ravine

end of the road

There was a very interesting hint of a road starting from the end of the road to lord knows where, but we weren't all that sure that it was legally okay to ride it with motorcycles so we did only a few hundreds meters, parked, and "jack" cooked us coffee from the stream water.

After coffee we moved on and pushed towards Kalkkoaivi only to stop for late lunch at a gas station near the Saana fell.

Saana

Highest point of the Finnish road network...

The Kalkkoaivi road also started tame, but turned in quite rocky towards the end. In dry conditions, it was very manageable, but might be tricky if wet. We kept the speeds low to minimize the risk for a puncture that seemed to be the biggest risk on this road. We did have spares and tools with us, but changing tires on the road would royally screwup our schedule. The place was also totally off the cell phone grid so should an injury occur, we might find our self in a bit of a situation.

Entering danger zone... Kalkkoaivi road starts with a shot up sign

Amazingly neither one of us went down even once. Not that the road was that demanding, but we were pretty worn down from riding all day and the Kalkkoaivi was our last hooray for the day. By the time wegot back on tarmac and in to the cabin, we were pretty beat. The cabin had a sauna which was a heaven sent at that point.

Some photos from the Kalkkoaivi road

Monday

As usual, monday sucked a tiny bit. The only thing on the agenda was getting back to the train in time. We tried to take the scenic route and stay of the main roads, but the roads and scenery were hardly a match for what we had seen on the past few days. We made a point to cross the border to the swedish side and ride along the river for a while buut that didn't really do it for us either. 

All in all

A great trip. It really did deepen my love for the 690. Not that it's capabilities were fully utilized, but it's just a great machine in many respects. Riding roads like the old postal road has pretty much ruined me for tarmac riding. The asphalt roads were spectacular in every way, but all I could think of is getting off from the paved stuff and even now when the trip is over I don't feel any desire to ride the twisties near or far. 

Technical problems

On the Honda... none. On the 690, a clogged fuel breather hose vent. Apparently there is a tiny valve on the part that the fuel cap screws on to and where the breather hose originates from. I thought that the hose was obstructed some wehere where it disappeared inside the bike and promptly cut it in two, but that didn't solve the problem, There was still a vacuum forming in the tank. Blowing and sucking on the breather hose cleared the valve and the problem went away.

road side repairs somewhere in Sweden

About gear

Nothing failed during the trip. Even my modified attachment system for the Wolfman bags worked as planned. The dehorning method also seemed to work as the straps showed no signs of wear after the trip. Fuel cans were completely leak free and even the new Macna Jura jacket worked as expected.

As usual, none of the "just-in-case" stuff was not needed. Lot of stuff that was just dead weight, but I guess it's better to have it and not need than the other way around. At times I wished I had warmer gloves and a helmet with a flip up sun visor, but those are not really problems.

KTM 690 Enduro Survey update

Updated the numbers since there have been some new ones since the last update. Now the total number of entries is 120.

Read the PDF here

Remember AGAIN, the stats on page one are NOT "real". 

1. the amount of entries is not large enough to make any conclusion regarding the bikes reliability
2. the data entered is not verified in any way (all issues could in fact  be entered by envious Honda men ;))
3. Individual bikes DO appear multiple times on the entries

690 Enduro owner's comments

The Unofficial KTM 690 Survey (posted here) at www.advrider.com has died as it has been buried under hundreds of other threads. I will try to resurrect it before the year is over, but in the meanwhile I though it would be fun to post the user comments that never really got published.

HERE YOU GO

• Bike has been wonderful since purchase, no other complaint except for the lean FI issue.  

• Great bike  

• Happy overall  

• Nothing puts a smile on ya dial like riding a 690R..  

• Great bike loved mine and would keep it but found a sweet deal on a 500. I had the motor apart last year and checked the rings and valves, all good very little wear.  

• Bike has had been used for adventure/trail ridding and has had a lot of off road use. Has been regularly serviced by KTM mechanics and never given any major problems.  

• Did have issues off and on with FI flameouts and hard starting, but cured all of that with the TuneECU. 

While the bike has had it's fair share of small issues, (the top end was expected as I rode the piss out of this thing) it's without a doubt the funniest bike I've ver owned.  

• Reliable, so far, but I've really not got that many miles on it, yet.  

• Great bike if only it was more reliable like every other KTM I have owned. Surprised there are so many things that need resolving given KTM are usually very good stock (EXC range)  

• Awesome bike.....  

• Awesome bike KTM, now give us one with 5 gallons, a beefy 00 watt stator, and real wind protection.  

• Great bike, would definitely have another.  

• A very noteworthy & stable platform. Like any mechanical device, they can have problems, but to date Ive had none & look forward to doing some hardcore adventure riding on it, CSR, Simpson desert etc  

• Runs like a top!  

• I dont trust the brand, until I get answers from the dealer or get fix the issues, very powerful bike, but don't trust to ride, always scary about the throttle body detachment. But many people says that I have to remap, waiting to get the bike to the dealer to fix the issues  

• Only bad thing about this bike is the steering turn radius. Lock to lock even without the bolts is too narrow.  

• Touchy on/off throttle action  

• This bike has ran flawlessly especially after replacing the OEM fuel pump.  

• KTM don't water down your brand, ie loosing and inch in suspension with the 2012+ models blows and is very noticeable when you ride the older model R vs the newer. Older longer travel suspension is more plush and handles better. Keep the FI computer unlocked so people can mess with the tunes so the FI issues and poor fuelling issues can be sorted out without going to the dealer, many of whom you need to check up on and make sure they know what the hell they are doing with your bikes. Hilarious when my buddy has to explain to the dealer that the bike doesn't need a top end rebuild after 60hrs. Not really.

• I love this bike!!!  

• The following mods have been done as preventative maintenance: http://ktm690.info/index.php/690_Hall_of_Wisdom#Radiator_Diffuser_Mount 

KTM Radiator Guards Installed

Flatlands Racing Skid Plate

Rally Raid Upper and Lower tank bolts

Evo-1 airbox lid and FI map - barely any throttle jerkiness. 

• I use my 690 primarily as a dirtbike (replaced a crf450r) and it is BY FAR the least maintenance intensive DIRTBIKE I have ever had. I did not list the countless smaller items (suspension rebuilds, brakes, tires, chain sliders, sprockets, clutch plates, wheel bearings, etc) that I have had to replace as they are normal wear and tear for any offroad bike.  

• Extremely high performance, very difficult bike to work on in my opinion, chappy fuel mapping.  

• I also changed the upper tank bolts, although the stock ones hadn't broken yet. Also changed the fuel pump at 10k miles although the original was still working fine. I would consider the issues with my bike to be minor. Most fun motorcycle I've ever ridden.  

• Have Safari tank, Carrier rack, (950 -T Tech cans), Sm wind screen, Scotts Stabilizer, Pivot pegs, rear bag, heated grips with engine modulator. Run between (15 & 14 X48) for dirt & Dunlop 908's. Great Bike!  

• Trouble free.  

• The bike has been perfect in the 6 months I've had it.  

• Too Tall, Too stiff suspension,Terrible seat,no wind protection.The newer bikes are shorter and better gauges.Potential to be an awsome bike  

• I didnt report this because I thought that it was my fault. but reading it seems to be an issue  

• love this bike  

• Most enjoyable bike I have ever owned  

• Fun bike  

• I recently replaced the fuel pump again for a CA Cycleworks pump at about 7300 miles. The filter I took out was already black and shaking the pump you could see black debris coming out. I replaced it as a precaution, bike was running fine.  

• what a great bike..  

• I sold the bike with 3200 miles on it. Flame outs (stalling) continually on technical trails is uncalled for.FMF Q pipe & RallyRaid air filter installed with second re map Speedo issue was never fixed completely Flame outs never cured  

• I sold the bike to RTW Noah. I took this bike through Africa and Europe in 5 months. I do not recommend using the 690. Maybe I'm just unlucky.  

• Great bike. Would buy again. Adapts well to riders style.  

• Awesome Bike.  

• shop has been cooperative, mechanic great..... bummer problems supposedly NOT widespread... bike unreal when it works...  

• I would buy another one  

• The 690 KTM is the most versatile bike on the market today but it has a few quirks.Bad wiring and bad fuel neck filler which invites crap to get in the tank and the fuel system. Bad design!  

• Awesome bike. Just bought a set of new Marchesini Rims with Avon Distanzia tires.. Gonna swap back and forth.  

• I love the bike  

• Normally flog the guts out of my bike on the weekends in deep dry sand or tight single trail. No problems. The bike is a beast.  

• Hope I can get the rings to seat, cuz I love the bike! Dealer said he/warranty would take care of it if not, so no worries yet.  

• Great bike - poor stock seat, but the reznaco makes it way too tall. Stock turn signal melted from the akrapovic exhaust.

I have rode this bike pretty hard from tough singletrack to some freeway and still love it  

• Did some of the much talked about preventative maintenance. No problems. Ridden hard. Quite a few 690s ridden by friends. One bad fuel pump on an '09. Otherwise minimal issues with 20k+ miles on some of them.  

• The bike has been extremely reliable and is used mostly offroad  

• No significant issues, other than consumables (tires, oil, bent bits, etc…). For the pounding this this takes - its remarkably robust !  

• It's not a huge problem but my bike is cutting out when riding slowly and reserve light is on with +- 1.5liter of petrol left.  

• Awesome.  

• Monster!  

• I can not do the survey as the bikes I talk about are not mine, but two cases. Ken Allen, Maryborough, 2008/9 model, 75000 kms, no fuel and original engine. 

Glen McGrath, Tara 2009 form memory, 95000 kms, totally untouched engine, Motorex 15w60 every 5000kms, only did first fuel filter 5000 kms ago. 12 months ago he stopped 40 ks form home, rode home, oil on boot, oilf filter bolt had fallen out, not enough oil left in it to cover bottom of drain tin. 12 months later, it is still going. True storey. 

• recently sold the bike and replaced it with a 2012 model great bike. no technical issues. just maintenance and farkling

• 40,000 Kim's and still loving the bike, just did a 9,000 km trip down through Utah from B.C., can't pick a better bike for real adventure riding. I'm looking to get the 2014  

• Wicked bike !  

• Bike has Leo slip-on, RR air filter and has been re-mapped with numerous stages of adjustments to the mapping to correct ever present stalling issues. Still not right.  

• love my 2008 enduro, but now purchasing a 2014 model...

Only "problem" is it eats tyres with too much road use:-)  

• Used mostly on weekends,60% dirt 40% tar.  

• We brought 3 new 2014 KTM 690R Enduro's and took them across the Simpson Desert. 2 had leaking radiators and 1 stopped dead with a broken roller rocker. When examined the roller rocker had broken an arm due to excessive heat from a failed needle roller bearing. It seems that the roller rocker problem and leaking radiators is a common problem with this model.  

• The engine sounds like a bucket full of spanners. I have stock pipe, and it sounds like a stock dr...  

• Great bike, ugly mirrors. Changed oil before i rode it, was motul oil in, replaced with correct motorex 10w60.  

Vacuum in the tank - pinched breather hose

The red area indicates where the hose was and where on of the rubber grommets of the seats also sets.

I noticed a strange thing on the bike when opening the gas cap. There seemed to be a somewhat strong vacuum in the gas tank and I had to really pull to get the gas cap off. I didn't pay much attention to it at first, but after the 2040 km trip I really started to wonder. None of my other bikes acted like this so something probably wasn't right.

I posted on a 690 thread on a bike forum and immediately got a reply that vacuum isn't normal and I probably had a clogged/kinked/pinched breather hose. Sure enough after removing the seat I found that the hose had been pinched by the seat and I had been practically sitting on the breather hose.

Problem was easily solved by moving the hose half an inch inwards so it would not be left under the seat grommet. I still need to pay attention when resetting the seat. It did leave me wondering if the hose really should be routed like this.