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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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!
Ive got a 800 gs and recently sold my KTM 690. They're entirely different machines. The best way i could describe the very big difference is that the GS is road bike equipped to do some off road, the 690/701 is an off road bike equipped to do some on rd. the 690 platform is an extremely versatile bike, it just doesnt have the comfort of the twin 800 but the motor will sit all day at 130kmh on a road if it has to, the riders comfort is the limit. I would have kept it as it was a great bike but the mrs loves being a pillion, but not on the 690. It isnt a 2 up touring bike. Top speed well beyond by comfort level. Got it up to 180kmh with plenty left. I could talk more, very regretful sale.I hear ya. I have an F800 GS and while it's been a great bike for 5 years and taken me to some cool places both on and off road I am wondering it this new "690" Husky could replace it and offer a better of road alternative. I do have a TE 250 which has served me well for day rides to the desert but it has obvious limitations. I was thinking of selling it ( not much money there ) and the 800GS and with a but more change getting t his new 701. I guess the real question for me is how will the 701 be on the highway for 200 miles?
The 701 appears to be in short supply and selling well, may be why the price is at MSRP. Did you buy your 630 when they were already being discontinued/discounted?
Plus the 701 has more power, a cush, slipper clutch, ride-by-wire throttle, multiple EFI maps, ABS, and higher-spec suspension, and longer service intervals, so you do at least get something you your money.
Thanks Jondirt, not very familiar with the KTM LC4 motor so just being cautious about 1st year models
Did you buy your 630 when they were already being discontinued/discounted?
I always use good oil and change it often, but you really should use the good stuff in the 690 motor. I was told multiple times by 2 different ex KTM dealers that the Motorex fully synth stuff (10w50?) Assists in protecting a particular engine bearing, i dont know which bearing they mean. Apparently it has silver in it? Very vague i know.The 690 engine is well proven. From what Ive heard, things do break from time to time, and when they do parts and service are expensive - but the engines seem to last well. My buddy Chris has clocked 50k kilos on his.
I'm seriously thinking about ordering one of these.![]()
On the rd the spoked off road rims were scary at speed in corners. So much roll on torque made the rear spin when leaning (not always desirable in a real life scenario), the slim front made for not much grip. The long suspension travel sometimes made the forks dip on hard braking, that is on the E with only a single disc. I think the SM with firmer forks and a lower ride height would fix most of this and you could utilize the second front disc. Mine had no ABS which made riding in the wet .... interesting. ......True that. I'm getting a set of 17's for mine when it shows up and just hope the front brake is enough to haul it down from high speed in a hurry. I'm also curious about the geometry changes it will make on the handling with the smaller wheels front and rear.