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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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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!
Actual news on the KTM purchase of Husqvarna
- Thread starter Howard V
- Start date
Mike-AK
Husqvarna
Pro Class
I've ridden every night this week so far. I'd still like the red and chrome shrouds, though.
MikeB
Husqvarna
AA Class
No reason why you couldn't get some chrome 'wrap' and stick it on the gas tank in the appropriate areas.
XLEnduroMan
Heroes Ride Huskys. The others follow.
7point62
Husqvarna
AA Class
KTM made the bike you are looking for; it is called a 950 Super Enduro. It is quite heavy but once you are onboard the weight just disappears. It can be tootled around all month long and there is not much it will not climb. Only thing is, if are irresponsible and twist its ear a bit hard it has been known to bite
Hi Rough Rider - and I thought my XR600 was too heavy!
It seems the world is full of bikes that are either 80/20 dirt biassed, or 40/60 road biassed. Where are the modern dirt bikes in the 60/40 -70/30 offroad range? It's 2013 - surely it can't be that hard to take an enduro chassis, lose a little height and an inch or two of suspension travel, conjour up a low maintenance motor that makes an honest 35 or maybe 40 hp at the back wheel (for comparison my tweaked XR made 40, a stock TE 449 makes 45ish) and sling on a headlight that will get you home in winter. TBH 35hp with a wide spread of power and no excess weight would probably be plenty on dirt tyres.
It didn't seem to matter back in the 80's, when trail bikes and road bikes were eqully crude and four strokes wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding, but since then Suzuki managed to extract 120bhp/litre from their boringly reliable TL1000 twin fifteen tears ago and even Ducati can make a sport bike with 15,000 mile service intervals. I can't help feeling that compared to their road cousins, dirt bike riders are being short changed (and that goes for competition machinery too).
How is it possible in this day and age that it's necessary to build an "offroad" bike so lardy that it needs a 600+cc engine just to pull it's fat backside out of the garage? And why should "trail" (as opposed to competition enduro) bikes be cursed with bad suspension, too much lard / flimsy build quality / poor performance? Why can't we have performance biassed yet practical machines, like that asphalt guys do? I could ride my GSXR750 proddy racer to work back in the day (so long as I remembered to put the licence plate on it...)
I think it was economist Paul Krugman who said "A free-market economy can get trapped for an extended period in a bad equilibrium in which good things are not demanded because they are not supplied, and are not supplied because not enough people demand them."
*don't get mad at me, I'm just thinking out loud, but as we're in a bit of a fork-in-the-road moment regarding Husky and the shrinking of the whole offroad scene in Europe and the USA perhaps it's time to ask awkward questions of the industry.
And a TE449 could fit that bill, with double the oil and a wide ratio gearbox and that slightly lower suspension plus proper mapping (not necessarily full power, just clean and strong throughout the rev range). Too bad that BMW/Husky didnt see fit to give it to us that way....but some of us our going to finish the job for them.
Hi Rough Rider - and I thought my XR600 was too heavy!
It seems the world is full of bikes that are either 80/20 dirt biassed, or 40/60 road biassed. Where are the modern dirt bikes in the 60/40 -70/30 offroad range? It's 2013 - surely it can't be that hard to take an enduro chassis, lose a little height and an inch or two of suspension travel, conjour up a low maintenance motor that makes an honest 35 or maybe 40 hp at the back wheel (for comparison my tweaked XR made 40, a stock TE 449 makes 45ish) and sling on a headlight that will get you home in winter.
It didn't seem to matter back in the 80's, when trail bikes and road bikes were eqully crude and four strokes wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding, but since then Suzuki managed to extract 120bhp/litre from their boringly reliable TL1000 twin fifteen tears ago and even Ducati can make a sport bike with 15,000 mile service intervals. I can't help feeling that compared to their road cousins, dirt bike riders are being short changed (and that goes for competition machinery too).
How is it possible in this day and age that it's necessary to build something so lardy that it needs a 600+cc engine just to pull it's fat backside out of the garage? And why should "trail" (as opposed to competition enduro) bikes be cursed with bad suspension, too much lard / cheapo build quality / poor performance? Why can't we have performance biassed yet practical machnes, like that asphalt guys do? I could ride my GSXR750 proddy racer to work back in the day (so long as I remembered to put the licence plate on it...)
I think it was economist Paul Krugman who said "A free-market economy can get trapped for an extended period in a bad equilibrium in which good things are not demanded because they are not supplied, and are not supplied because not enough people demand them."
*don't get mad at me, I'm just thinking out loud, but as we're in a bit of a fork-in-the-road moment regarding Husky and the shrinking of the whole offroad scene in Europe and the USA perhaps it's time to ask awkward questions of the industry.
I think the reliable bikes stay heavier because manufacturers feel they need to be either a budget build or a race bike. As for the other statements a 600cc sportbike makes about 110 rear wheel hp while the husky 450 is making 45 rwhp. Which puts is at more hp considering its 3 cyclinders short. I think another consideration is how they lighten internal motor parts in a race bike that may make it less reliable but makes the bike feel quicker and turn better. There is no doubt though that someone should be able to build a 450cc dual sport with 15k valve adjustments that weighs about 260 pounds. I just wonder at what cost. A wr250r yamaha makes about 25 hp, is over 300 pounds and costs about 7k. I'd really hate to see how heavy the big brother would be and the cost.
This is exactly why every rider needs two bikes, one for playing/racing and one to throw down pure mileage . When I'm president, everyone will own 2 bikes, vote for me!
. When I'm president, everyone will own 2 bikes, vote for me!
Indorider
Husqvarna
AA Class
This is exactly why every rider needs two bikes, one for playing/racing and one to throw down pure mileage
Sure you want that job?
I don't want to lose some of my bikes!This is exactly why every rider needs two bikes, one for playing/racing and one to throw down pure mileage
Nevermind, I don't want to be president anymore because no matter what you do someone will complain lol
7point62
Husqvarna
AA Class
There is a 500cc Dual Sport that weighs about 260 lbs: the KTM 500 EXC. It is a very nice $$ bike.
The only problem is the big price tag ! And of course more $$ for mods to suite the rider.
ray_ray
Mini-Sponsor
Yep and right in the middle was a frame without an engine cradle ..Makes you think that with all that brilliance, the designers did not know what they were building this bike for ... Most if not all the new/old ideas of that bike ended on Huskies models with a new frame complete with an engine cradle.
The guy I replied to was speaking of maintenance intervals like a real street bike and the KTM like the Husky is no where close. Designers extracted the power they could out of them and it makes the bikes expensive not just with the initial price but maintenance.
mnb
Husqvarna
Pro Class
It's not a Dual Sport, though. It's a plated dirt bike. A significant difference.
