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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

Got a New Bike - Gas Gas 300

Phoenix

Phoenix

Husqvarna
AA Class
After a summer of changing pistons, cam chains, adjusting valves and parting out a blown up KTM, I decided that I wanted to try something different - a 2 stroke. I've only owned 4 strokes up to this point - a 2005 Honda CRF 250X, 2007 KTM 250 XCF-W and a 2010 Husky TXC 250 (and a couple of supermotos and a TXC 450), so I figured I was in for quite a learning curve in the maintenance and riding department. I set my sights on something that would be as "fourstrokey" as possible. I went round and round on what I wanted and kept talking myself out of it and back into a 2013 TXC 310. I really wanted to get a Husky, but the 2 strokes are just too darned tall (I went to a dealer and literally could not get on the bike!) Finally, I lucked onto a killer deal on a 2013 GG 300 with estart and figured that was the sign. We received the bike last Friday and due to the weather was only able to take it on a short, slimy loop on our favorite trail. Needless to say, I didn't get a great impression of it other than OMG that's a lot of power. lol. So, here are my instant impressions:

Good:
Well built machine. Beautiful. Lots of nice parts from the factory like FMF pipe and a nice, robust skid plate.
Headlight and working tail light from the factory. Pretty neat.
The electric start works like a charm. It is soooo easy to start.
Motor is smooth as butter. Power rolls on easily and there are two modes to temper the engine's bark.
Idling. The bike will literally sit there and idle without having to blip the throttle. I didn't think 2 strokes did that.
Jetting was really good for our area out of the box. Choke is on the perch in the location where the cold start is on my TXC 250.


Not as good:
Gas gas mounted the battery to the seat. Yes, TO the seat. It is literally bolted to the bottom of the seat, which means you have to disconnect it to remove the seat entirely. Fortunately, for air filter maintenance, etc., you can just dangle the seat off to the side.
The bike is heavy. Really heavy...like as heavy as our 2009 TXC 450. However, like the 450, it feels light and nimble while you are riding.
Taller than the 2011. The 2013 is .4 inches taller than the 2011 I test rode. That doesn't seem like a lot on paper, but in the real world it means that I can't touch - even on tip toes - on both sides. I'm hoping that ditching the comically big rear tire (140/80-18) and allowing the suspension to settle in will bring me a little closer to earth.

I'll post some pictures later. Its truly a beautiful bike (even after I put a couple of scratches and some dirt on it) and looks nice next to our Huskies and Ducatis.
 
Congrats on the new bike! I had the chance to put a few trail miles on a 2011 GG300 a couple days ago. This was my first ride on a GG as there isn't a lot of diversity in bikes in our area. Mostly Kawis and Yamahas as those are the only 2 dealers close. Anyway, I was riding my 2008 KTM 300 and I swaped with the GG rider for a few miles. Wow! I loved it almost instantly. Felt soo much more compact and nimble than my KTM does. Felt like a surgeons scalpel compared to a butter knife against my KTM 300. In my opinion a much better race platform compared to the KTM . Glad you found something you are happy with. :thumbsup:
 
Wow, I was gonna say you could cut the seat foam down, but it doesn't look like there's much there to begin with. That's quite a jump to a 300 2t
 
I've been looking at going 2 stroke myself, Gas Gas 300 is a nice bit of kit, I just can't get used to the lack of engine breaking each time I try a 2T, just got to take the leap I suppose. Surprised at your comment on the weight of it, looks light and on paper is it 112kg ?
 
I am surprised and impressed with its looks. I always thought GG's looked pretty ordinary. Having said that its the 4 bangers I am thinking of. Your beast is a very sexy thing. Just looks so put to gether. Love the length of the seat-can get right over her.
Hope she rides as good as she looks. Please keep the reports and phot coming.
 
Nice bike! I'm going to test ride one this weekend, as new dealer is having a demo day. I'm really liking my Husaberg TE250 2T.
 
Freaky said:
I've been looking at going 2 stroke myself, Gas Gas 300 is a nice bit of kit, I just can't get used to the lack of engine breaking each time I try a 2T, just got to take the leap I suppose. Surprised at your comment on the weight of it, looks light and on paper is it 112kg ?
Click to expand...

I was pretty shocked too as it sounded nice and light on paper. I'm sure the figure on paper includes absolutely no fluids as well as no electric start system. I'm going to take it to a scale and see what the real world figure is. The battery, itself, weights 6 pounds at least and is bolted to the highest point on the bike. A Shorai is in the near future for this bike.

I thought the lack of engine braking would bother me too, but on my one ride thus far I was more nervous about going up hills than going down hills. Its the exact opposite on my Husky 250! I haven't cranked up the speed yet, though, so I don't know how it will feel going into a corner. Its really very four-stroke-like, though. It sits there and idles like you're used to, it has a lot of grunt and bottom end (ok, i'm not exactly used to that with my txc 250).

I'm sure the bike will get ridden quite a lot this weekend (by me and the numerous others that have already demanded a test ride. lol) so I'll be able to give a better report. I'll run a practice lap on it at our race, but I'm going to race my Husky 250. I look forward to this winter so that I can get some extended seat time on it and see how well it fits me.

Nice bike! I'm going to test ride one this weekend, as new dealer is having a demo day. I'm really liking my Husaberg TE250 2T.
Click to expand...

I considered a Husaberg as well. They look like nice bikes and you get the benefit of KTM cross-compatibility without having to be a member of the faceless orange mob. :)
 
Congrats on the new GG, Phoenix! :thumbsup: We've got a few of them in our garage and I've ridden several other 300's and they are truly nice bikes. A 300 is about as close as you're going to get to a 4-stroke, too. I've often referred to them as 3-strokes. You can ride `em like a motocrossin' maniac or you can putt on them all day in 3rd gear without a care in the world. Superbly versatile machine!
 
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