This custom 3D printed KTM 1290 MotoGP replica is nearing completion
Jonathon Bello has set out to turn a KTM 1390 Super Duke into a track-ready MotoGP replica - with help of a 3D printer.
The dream of owning a road-going MotoGP bike is one most of us have courted, although with Ducati Desmosedici RR nearing £100k and Honda’s RC213V-S nudging a quarter of a million quid, for most of us the dream remains just that.
You may also like to read our KTM 1390 Super Duke R review
One rider from America didn’t let that stand in his way, though, and as KTM doesn’t offer a customer version (or anything close to it) of its RC16 MotoGP, he decided to build his own. The builder of this crazy looking machine is one Jonathon Bello, a content creator from across the pond with a particular penchant for KTM’s grand prix machine.
He’s taken the wholly sensible decision to do something that KTM seems unable (read that as unwilling) to do; turn the bonkers 1390 Super Duke R into a fully faired sports bike, clip-ons and all!
What it is actually called remains up for debate, with J Bello, as he is known, even leaving it up to his followers to decide. The options are Project RC16 (as is the working title of the project, RC1390R, or RC14, but honestly, what’s in a name?
Naming conventions aside, the bike is an interesting project. Bello has retained much of the original 1390 Super Duke, which in itself is already a fantastic road and track bike, but has changed the overall look and feel of the machine with MotoGP-inspired bodywork. But instead of turning to fibreglass or even carbon fibre for the fairing, Bello instead fired up a 3D printer and got busy with that instead.
The result is a bike that, if you squint a bit, looks very much like KTM’s MotoGP challenger, with the centrally-mounted air intake, winglets and seat/subframe all looking quite close to the factory RC16. The fuel tank is a little more bulbous than the race bike, looking slightly oversized compared to the rest of the machine, although some compromises in a project like this are always going to crop up.
What is interesting to see when looking at the fairings are the geometric lines and shapes that make up the contours of the fairing. The downside of the material, though, is that it does look quite a bit thicker than a traditional fairing. It’ll be interesting to see if that affects the bike’s weight and on-track performance.
And that is something that is likely to get tested later on in the series, as Bello is also a keen racer, with some wins in the PanAmerican SuperBike series to his name.
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
