• 4 Stroke Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Italy - About 1989 to 2014
     TE = 4st Enduro & TC = 4st Cross

  • Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

510 owners.... tight going

HuskyD;12676 said:
......I have a 2005 TE 510 and in the tight woods it can be a hand full......
Click to expand...

ditto..........For +/-90% of my riding my '05 TE510, is an absolute blast, however in serious, nasty, steep, tight, technical trail riding, it is more tiring than smaller properly set-up bikes.

It's much more than just physically size, the power characteristics can make the 510 more to deal with. Some places it is, as I've heard called, the lazy mans bike, w/that torque letting you lug though sections, but don't kid yourself, you just don't flick around that big rotating mass around on tight trails with the ease you can on something like my son's KDX200, a strong 250 4-stroke or like I expect the TE310 to be.

Don't get me wrong here, assuming a person has good throttle control, you can ride a 510 in anything short of maybe actual trials competition, but it will wear you down quicker in many trail conditions......sort of like a long long time ago when there use to be a 500 2 stroke class, on tight MX tracks many times you would see the 250's turn in better times than the 500's

Bottomline, I guess to answer part of the original question, yes I personally can live with it.

Mods: IMO, No.1 is lower gearing. I typically run my with stock 14/50 gearing, at times dropping to 13/50 for all day slower nasty stuff.
FYI: The '05 is lowered geared than the newer models. When Husky went 50 states legal, the primary gears changed, so newer TE's need about 3-4 teeth more on the back to match previous gearing.
 
Thanks for the replies folks.
Good point I didnt give my height weight. I'm 6'4'' and 15/16 stone, 224lb 101kg I think...?
I used to race an XR650R and she was hard work (mainly because of the lack of button if you dropped it) once I got the 250 2 stroke I felt like a feather(fluffy...?).
I like the big bore torque though of the 510. I have riden a 300 (250 with the Athena kit) and it was great but I think I may be better suited to the big girl, the 510 appeals to me, it calls out to me in the showroom...:notworthy:
Maybe I should keep the 01 WR250 for the really snotty events and get the 510 for the rest!
 
brock;12801 said:
.......Maybe I should keep the 01 WR250 for the really snotty events and get the 510 for the rest!
Click to expand...

If I already had a good 2-stroke set-up for me, that would be the route I'd take.
(my kid's KDX is super clean and he doesn't like anyone touching it, especially me taking it on trails he won't ride......worried I'll scrach his baby on nasty trails)
 
Motosportz;12785 said:
True but the reciprocating mass makes all the difference in the world. The taller cylinder raises the heavy head parts as well. The 250/310 feels 40 pounds lighter than the 510 and 30 pounds lighter than the 450.

I have an 08 TXC450 and my buddy Jake has a TXC250, the 250 feels like a 125 in comparison to my bike. Love my 450 but there is no doubt the 250 feels lighter and is way more flickable.

Additionally the much higher spring rates conspire to make it even more top heavy in comparison.
Click to expand...

Bingo..couldnt have said it better myself....
 
RLW;12788 said:
ditto..........For +/-90% of my riding my '05 TE510, is an absolute blast, however in serious, nasty, steep, tight, technical trail riding, it is more tiring than smaller properly set-up bikes.

It's much more than just physically size, the power characteristics can make the 510 more to deal with. Some places it is, as I've heard called, the lazy mans bike, w/that torque letting you lug though sections, but don't kid yourself, you just don't flick around that big rotating mass around on tight trails with the ease you can on something like my son's KDX200, a strong 250 4-stroke or like I expect the TE310 to be.

Don't get me wrong here, assuming a person has good throttle control, you can ride a 510 in anything short of maybe actual trials competition, but it will wear you down quicker in many trail conditions......sort of like a long long time ago when there use to be a 500 2 stroke class, on tight MX tracks many times you would see the 250's turn in better times than the 500's

Bottomline, I guess to answer part of the original question, yes I personally can live with it.

Mods: IMO, No.1 is lower gearing. I typically run my with stock 14/50 gearing, at times dropping to 13/50 for all day slower nasty stuff.
FYI: The '05 is lowered geared than the newer models. When Husky went 50 states legal, the primary gears changed, so newer TE's need about 3-4 teeth more on the back to match previous gearing.
Click to expand...

Thats not always the case, people told me that I'd be much faster on a 2-stroke. I finally broke down and gave it a try....turns out I was much slower in the tight stuff than I was on my 525exc.
 
I completely agree, it's not always the case, depends on what fits each individual rider....his size/conditioning, abilities, riding style, even the bike itself....what your used to, and the riding area.
I know a few guys that are the same as you that prefer big bore 4 strokes (one even rides a '07 525EXC....nice bike by the way), but for most I've ridden with they generally did better or had an easier time on a smaller, many times 2-stroke bike.
(.....I'm not saying a YZ125 over a TE510, but smaller properly set-up off-road trail bikes.)

I think another factor we come across with on-line discussions or perceptions on how a bike works or not on tight trails, is our idea of what a tight trail is.
I'm sure what guys in the NW think is tight trail, is different than someone in the SW, Midwest, East.....or UK.
 
Here are some pics of my trails...

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225414965_iNuGN-M.jpg


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225415208_KSKpX-M-1.jpg


427278940_4YQir-M.jpg


427278647_e9M4M-M.jpg


225408418_TqNWT-M.jpg
 
RLW;12811 said:
I completely agree, it's not always the case, depends on what fits each individual rider....his size/conditioning, abilities, riding style, even the bike itself....what your used to, and the riding area....
Click to expand...

RLW;12788 said:
...Mods: IMO, No.1 is lower gearing. I typically run my with stock 14/50 gearing, at times dropping to 13/50 for all day slower nasty stuff....
Click to expand...

I cannot imagine a more dangerous situation *for me* than to have a 510 with lowered gearing and good traction. My throttle control is not that good :cripple:

That comment only applies to *me*.
 
My 510TE works fairly sweet in the tight stuff now.
Rekluse, G2 and FI fine tuned. If it was a little shorter in seat height it would be even better.
 
Coffee;12823 said:
I cannot imagine a more dangerous situation *for me* that to have a 510 with lowered gearing and good traction. My throttle control is not that good :cripple:

That comment only applies to *me*.
Click to expand...


Just pin it and keep a couple fingers on the clutch for a safety valve:excuseme:

Seriously, the biggest issue I have is with my 5'10" height. On off-camber, muddy, rocky terrain I don't get to tap dance or dog paddle around stuff..
 
Fast1;12827 said:
Just pin it and keep a couple fingers on the clutch for a safety valve:excuseme:..
Click to expand...

Looking at Jeff's pic, while reading Coffees comment and then "just pin it", is giving me some great visuals :lol:

Jeff.......bet all those leaves get a slick in the rain.
Other than dirt and sometimes a lot of rock, about the only time I see leaves that thick is maybe a short section of mtn trail going thru a grove of aspens in late fall, or areas where the trail will be buried in pine needles




Fast1;12827 said:
Seriously, the biggest issue I have is with my 5'10" height. On off-camber, muddy, rocky terrain I don't get to tap dance or dog paddle around stuff..
Click to expand...

I'm also 5'-10" and that stock 38+" seat height concerned me a bit, so I let the dealer talk me into having them put 1.5" spacers in my suspension. I may have mentioned that I'm not 100% happy with doing so overall, but have to admit it is nice on some of our 1st, low 2nd gear goat trails.
 
I think it's a member of our trail club that posted some videos of a few of our trails on this site http://www.usdirtbiker.com/Video2.html
Shows were the TE510 is entirely capable of going. (warning they take time to load, and couple have a lot of head moment)

At our ITMA State Ride, some of our guys invited me along on a ride on the Sheep Ck trail. They're little younger/faster than me, so I opted out. Different group, but after seeing the "Crossing Sheep Creek" vid taken that same week, not too upset I missed it.
Did ride same trails shown in Roaring River and Upper Lava Mtn vid
Then last August, a few of us (me on my Husky) went on the same trails (except reverse direction) shown in the Willow Ck, Skeleton Creek vid farther down. (my avatar pic is from Willow Ck)
 
Jeff@TireBalls;12817 said:
Here are some pics of my trails...
Click to expand...

I would not call those tight. here is a vid of an area near here that is tight. So tight you have to slip the clutch in 1st for miles. I was on my rekluse equipped YZ at the time. About 1.35 minutes into the vid it is so tight it makes you sick to watch, and this is not even the real tight stuff. The dude I am chasing is on a 125. I like meeting Fitness2go and Ioneater here and watching them have at it. Good times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srBZ_QITDiY&feature=channel_page
 
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