I've owned approximately 30 bikes, everything from 250cc two strokes to big twin monsters. Not every bike had a kickstand, of course, but on all that did they were just something you never thought about. Put them down to park, put them up to ride. Interlock systems are the norm and they all seemed not too much of a problem, though the old XT-350 would cut off the motor on large jumps when the kickstand bounced down just enough to open the switch. Enter: THE HUSKY 610. 1. From minute one it was obvious that the damn thing was just WAY too short. When put on the kickstand the bike leans at a strange angle, and that was in the garage! Did they make mine at the end of a batch of tubes or something? Did they just use a left-over tube of random length instead of the specified 11 inches? Or, impossibly, are they all this way? Did some lug-nut in the Husky design labs slap down his protractor and say "Perfecto! Let's go have a Campari and celebrate!". Inquiring minds wonder... (It goes without saying that this is an Italian engineered component, I bet the old Swedish models have steel kickstands of substantial dimenstion and strength.) Park the bike on any kind of graded surface and the bike is seriously in danger of flipping off the stand. Thus making it sort of useless for getting on the bike, which is a shame because it has the highest leg-over of any bike I've ridden, and so you kinda want to get on the peg on to throw a leg over. 2. Who ever thought up the "retract when the weight goes off it" is an idiot. I think this might be an Italian idiot. If I remember right it was a Ducati that had the "retract when you pull in the clutch" feature, which was also bad, but not nearly as bad as the "retract when the weight goes off". (RWTWGO) My 15 year old daughter goes down in the garage to get a hammer or something and threading between the maze of bikes pushes the Husky up enough to get by, slowly, and then leans it back only to find: Ahhhhhhh. Down it goes, knocking the YZ-450 next to it over, which cascades onto the Road Star, which is too big to be effected. She now has two bikes in the garage leaking gas, one of which is too big for her to pick up. "Daddy, I'm sorry". She actually managed to get it back on the stand by the time I got home ... 3. Bendy little POS, isn't it. So being fully aware of the RWTWGO "feature" and the strange short size I am out riding w/ buddy. Find a flat palce to park, get off to do whatever, step on the peg and feel a sickeing 'thhhuuudge" as the kickstand deforms just under the bolt, changing the angle of the beast to something even more unworkable.... 4. So I stop using it to get on the beast, and am super careful to park only on flat flat places. I go to dealer of annual maintenance and tell him: oh yeah, fix the kickstand please. He says "what's wrong with it?" This dealer only sells Husky's. I look at him with my: "Don't screw with me. I am a bad man and I will do bad things to you" stare. He cracks the barest hint of a smile. "OK, we'll fix it". And they do. Well more or less. the ridiculous RWTWGO feature is gone. It's on a simple spring connected to nothing. Leave it down and you will suffer. I can deal with that. It's an inch longer, and has been all welded up with a sleave and repaired at the neck. Life is good. I can now park the bike on any surface, it stands that perfect amount leaning over, which is probalby something like 15*, and doesn't threaten to topple over in a stiff breeze. I can stand on the kickstand side peg and throw my right leg over. Bliss. 5. For three days of riding. Just now, leaving the garage, roll the bike out, close the garage door. Gear up, stand on peg .. uyya whoop, bam! Kickstand totally fails, breaking off just below the pivot. Bike goes over slowly, I gracefully topple over on my side, with the bike on top of me. A zero MPH crash. Fantastic! The only injury is to the clutch lever, which is now C shaped. And my ego (hopefully no one saw that). Oh, well, good news! The g-damned kickstand is DEAD. Totaled. Wasted. Destroyed. NO MORE. I have a theory. The Husky 610 was designed to be a race bike. It hates having dual-sport stuff bolted onto it, and so will work to divest itself of all the dualsport stuff, the taillight, license plate bracket, turn signals have all been pulverized on mine in various off-road get-offs, while the core "dirtbike" stuff is unscarred. Weird. I think the bike itself hated the kickstand more than I did, and we conspired to kill it. I now have a dual sport "leaner". Lean it against something, like I do with my MX bike when out riding. Being the slow to learn type though, I dropped the failed parts over at Joes to have a new kickstand fabbed by the "fab guy". I asked for something much stonger, maybe Chrome Molly, , or something. (Somehow Honda manages to make kickstands out of pot metal that last for decades without a problem. Harley builds 'em out of mild steel and they hold up 800 lb behemouths without fail....) Love the bike. Hate the kickstand. Thanks for helping me in my therapy. -DZ
Great rant. But you really should never put body weight on a Husky bike on its side stand. They're dainty!
Agree 100% Maybe you should look into this; http://www.cigarmikes.com/2010/01/working-on-center-stands-for-other.html
consider putting the 630 sidestand on you bike.it will not address everything you dislike about husky sidestands but it is a definate improvement.dan
Mine fell over from the stand as well. Bent clutch lever. Put it in the vice and straightened it out -- like buttah.
