• Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Sweden - About 1988 and older

  • 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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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!

Auroux Vintage Enduro - France August 24/25th 2013

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CH Sponsor
Looking forward to 2 days of riding in the sunshine soon at the Auroux Enduro!

Last year was just great, and it will be good to go and visit some of our French friends.

Six of us from the UK are going, with 5 of them on Huskys.auroux2.JPG
 
I was at the 1973 ISDT and watched in marvel as the West German team members rode 750 BMWs through our woods faster that our local experts could on lighter and much narrower bikes. I was amazed to find out the ISDT BMWs weighed in at 280 lbs. I think the XL250 and other dual purpose bikes of that time were the same or heavier. The ISDT BMWs are actually lighter than the modern dual sports.

The organizer of that ISDT, Al Eames, was actually given one by BMW after the close of the event
 
jimspac said:
I was at the 1973 ISDT and watched in marvel as the West German team members rode 750 BMWs through our woods faster that our local experts could on lighter and much narrower bikes. I was amazed to find out the ISDT BMWs weighed in at 280 lbs. I think the XL250 and other dual purpose bikes of that time were the same or heavier. The ISDT BMWs are actually lighter than the modern dual sports.

The organizer of that ISDT, Al Eames, was actually given one by BMW after the close of the event
Click to expand...

here's an article i found here: http://www.motohistory.net/news2008/news-feb08.html

However, Schek had discovered that the big boxer twins were too heavy to compete effectively against the British singles, and he advised von der Marwitz that the motorcycles needed to be slimmed down to 150 or 160 kilograms. Von der Marwitz responded that this was quite impossible, and Schek said, “Okay, I will build my own BMW.” BMW provided materials to Schek's specifications, and he reduced the machine to an incredible 135 kilos, then later to 125 kilos. So unique were these specials, they became known as Schek BMWs. Schek is shown here aboard one of his special BMWs in 1978.



When the ISDT came to the United States in 1973, BMW wanted to put on a big show. The American market was very important, and the Bavarian firm hoped to build its image consistent with the reputation of the new /5 model line, which was more sporting than the old, heavy /2s. For bragging rights, BMW had already given ISDT organizer Al Eames an R75/5 with special high pipe and other modifications for his use in laying out the course, and at the parc ferme BMW erected one of the largest displays of all of the manufacturers. Schek took responsibility for building four motorcycles for a Silver Vase Team, but between his delivery and arrival of the motorcycles in Massachusetts, someone at BMW made changes, without informing him. Schek says, “I was annoyed because I was responsible for these motorcycles, and after our arrival in America, I converted my own machine again.” He adds,“The nights in New England were icy cold, and we had never tested the motorcycles for cold starting in the morning. They had no choke, and they would fire, but it was impossible to keep them running because they were too lean.” Schek modified the floats in his carburetors to richen the mixture, and won another gold medal, but after its expensive and unhappy American experience, BMW again shut down its off-road factory team.



Schek returned to Maico, which by now offered a 504cc – a motorcycle far more suitable to his imposing size – and he won the open class in 1975 at the ISDT at the Isle of Man (Pictured above). Then Schek changed to what was surely the most exotic and unusual motorcycle of his off-road riding career. He explains, “Sachs asked me to help them build an enduro bike with a Wankel rotary engine. We set the rotor longitudinally in the frame and mated it to a seven-speed gearbox.” Schek rode the Sachs Wankel in 1976 and 1977, after which Sachs abandoned development of the rotary engine and canceled its off-road program. But by this time, BMW was developing its new G/S model, which would awaken a new interest in Galaendesport during the 1980s, especially when the OMK – West Germany's motorcycle sport governing body – created a new enduro class for 750cc and larger engines. There was suddenly so much demand for big off-roaders that Schek found himself with orders for seventeen of his ultra-light Schek BMWs, some with engines even larger than 1,000cc!

At the international level, the FIM had a class for 1,000 to 1,300cc machines. Perhaps others did not study the rules closely enough, but Schek is what Germans call a Schlitzohr, a clever follow who can see the gaps (opportunities) in the rules. As a result, in 1980 Schek became the only person to win an enduro championship in the 1,300cc class aboard a 1010cc motorcycle. The following year the FIM revised the rules to make the open class 600cc plus.

In 1981, at the Isle of Elba, Herbert Schek entered his 25th ISDT. He says, “After the event, an officer of the OMK came to congratulate me. He said that 25 was a record that could never be bettered, and now it was time for me to step down for the younger ones.” Schek shakes his head in disbelief, “It is an attitude I simply cannot understand. Why would one ever quit?” (Schek's record of 25 ISDT/Es held until 2006 when American Jeff Fredette surpassed that number in New Zealand.) Schek went on to prepare BMW rally bikes for the French distributor, whose riders Hubert Auriol and Gaston Rahier won the Rallye Paris Dakar in both 1983 and 1984 (Pictured above is Rahier aboard his Schek-prepared Paris Dakar BMW). Schek also has ridden Paris Dakar fifteen times, winning the Marathon Class in 1984 before he was refused a racing license due to his age. Still, Herbert Schek (pictured above) rides on, and today der Lange aus Wangen remains one of the most popular figures in German vintage enduro competition, where he can be seen week after week, pushing his original red Schek BMW to the starting line.
 
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