KTM wins Bike of the Year

In thrilling fashion, the 2014 Pirelli SA Bike of the Year came down to two bikes and just four points after all the votes had been tallied.

At the media breakfast for the AMID Motorcycle Expo at NASREC, in front of assembled media and special guests, Mat Durrans and Harry Fisher from The Bike Show and organisers of the competition, announced that the KTM 1290 Super Duke R had won overall honours, narrowly beating the BMW S1000R, with Ducati’s Monster 1200S in third place.

14 judges, drawn from the cream of SA motoring and motorcycling media across both print and online, newspaper and magazine, spent two days assessing the nine finalist bikes on the roads from Johannesburg to Sabie and back again. The importers had supplied two of each finalist bike in order to allow the judges significant saddle time on each finalist.

The finalists were (in no particular order); BMW S1000R, BMW R1200GS Adventure, Ducati Monster 1200S, Ducati 899 Panigale, Yamaha MT-09, Yamaha MT-07, Kawasaki Z1000, Suzuki DL1000 V-Strom and the KTM 1290 Super Duke R.

Judges were then asked to vote for their top six bikes and points were awarded as follows; 10 points for 1st, 6 for 2nd, 4 for 3rd, 3 for 4th, 2 for 5th and 1 for 6th.

As last year, the voting at the top was incredibly tight and it was only as the last vote came in that a winner could be declared. KTM have now made up for losing out so closely to BMW last year and this year’s result now sets the scene for an even more thrilling event next year.

Now in its second year, the Pirelli SA Bike of the Year has been granted official status not only by AMID (Association of Motorcycle Importers and Distributors) but by the importers themselves, not to mention the national media and motorcycle-buying public.

[ source : KTM ]

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