Talk me out of a new(ish) KTM 690

[buebo]

Hello,
I've planed a trip through the Balkans. The Idea is to go to Romania, do the Enduromania there, then head east to Ukraine and take the ferry to Istanbul. From there on I'll basically be going west towards the Adria, through Bulgaria and maybe Greece. Then it's northwards through Albania, (quick peek into Kosovo), Croatia and then back home to Germany. All together I recon it's about 8 to 10.000km (just guessing here).

The only problem is: My designated travel bike (TT600R) is falling apart on me. I'm not gonna dive into the specific problem here, but after having fixed it, I rather not use it for traveling any more as some major breakdown would mean the end of my trip and I have a bad feeling that exactly this will happen.

I want to do as much as possibly of my Trip on the smaller (unpaved) backroads, but I also need to be able to do a quick day on the highway, ride around Istanbul with my girl on the back (comes flying in, we'll not be going two-up), and be gone fast after insulting english football fans in the local pub.

Also this Trip (I call it Project Balkan ) will be my last long trip for the foreseeable future. After that I might get away here and there for a couple of days, maybe two weeks, but not months at a time and not much farther then say Morocco or Romania.

With that in mind: What I'm looking for is a bike to blow around Frankfurt (my hometown), take trips with, go off road in Romania, Morocco, France, Italy or god knows where and just have fun with.

What I'm not looking for is a Bike that can go round the world without any maintenance, can run 200km/h all day, is heavy like the GS or nimble like a 125.

In comes the new KTM 690. Lightweight, high powered, cute, lovable, 180kgs of max load and with the optional Touratech Boxes able to transport all my crap around. It seems just the perfect bike for me.

It's hard to reasonable when you're in love, but I'll try:

Good:

• Oil Change every 5.000km, Valves every 10.000. Looks like KTM thinks this engine might be relativly solid.
• Lightweight (about 150kg ready to go)
• Fast!
• Beautifull!
• Extended Warranty cover's everywhere I'll be going for the next two years (except Albania).
• Good for cruising on-road.

Bad:

• Expensive
• Engine is unproven so far (except for the Dakar )
• Seemingly needs some kind of exotic oil (0W-60?).

I'll be heading to Romania at the End of July so I need to make a decision soon, start searching and buy the bike and all the stuff (basically a bashplate and a set of panniers).

So why not go to the KTM Dealer right now and just buy the thing?

Thanks!