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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

Should I get a Husky?

The DL650 isn't a bad bike, in my opinion; a little uninspiring, but a good utilitarian mount. It will not be very effective offroad (if that's what you're after). They are reliable. My friend has a DL1000 and he loves it, not exactly my style.

Note that a DR650 and a DL650 and a KLR are very different riding experiences. They are definitely suited towards different types of riding.

Ryan Wallis said:
I would like to do a 2 or 3 hour round trip occasionally and I'm told the Strada/DR/KLR don't offer much comfort on a long ride. Plus I don't have the longest legs!
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Comfort is very subjective. I've done 10 hours in a day on a sportbike, on twisty roads and highway. I've done MANY 6-8 hour days on dirt bikes (racing enduros and riding across the US). On the other hand, but have guys that won't even ride a bike until they replace the seat; I've never replaced the seat on any bike. I think people whine too much. ;)

For a 2-3 hour trip, and of those bikes would be fine. I'd do 2 hours on a supersport/superbike without a moment's thought.
 
I briefly considered a KLR until I sat on one at a dealership. They ought to call it the Super Pig 3000 instead of KLR.
 
Ryan Wallis said:
The Strada appealed to me the moment I saw it and I've always been a fan of that kind of bike. The main concern is the cost of having a european bike and the comfort factor.
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It has a uber reliable Rotax designed motor and proven chassis, its a great bike and IMHO the best of class. Needs a "spoofer" to tell the EFI to be richer and after that it is all up to you. It gets great mileage and does have a fuel range meter, has great power (walks away from my buddies V-strom), will hammer out mile after mile on a good factory seat and will easily do 70 plus all day long on the highway. Is a good off road bike for 2 track and Ez single track. It is IMHO the best do it all bike going right now and the prices are very good. It would be the ideal bike and one I would pick if I were in our situation. Really the only down side is it is discontinued but that I don't think is going to matter much to actually owning and servicing one.
 
The fact that its discontinued worries me a bit. If it were such a great bike then why would they drop it from their fleet? Surely if its good, sells and gives them a good return then they'd be churning them out by the the hundreds...no? Or is it that they made too good a bike for the return?

My off road interests stretch as far as fire trails and dirt roads. Its not likely that I'll be doing jumps or riding through water or anything quite that adventurous. I just want something that can take on a dirt road thats off the beaten track if I see it on my travels. I ride a mountain bike but I don't hit any mountains! I just like having the option to jump up and down curbs or cross a field if I want. Most of the time it will be on tarmac...
 
Ryan Wallis said:
The fact that its discontinued worries me a bit. If it were such a great bike then why would they drop it from their fleet? Surely if its good, sells and gives them a good return then they'd be churning them out by the the hundreds...no? Or is it that they made too good a bike for the return?
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It sounds like you're not aware of this, but the KTM group purchased Husqvarna motorcycles early this year (late last year, perhaps?), and is completely moving the entire business to a new facility, new product line, new engineering, new chassis, new powerplants (all KTM-based). They are not carrying ANY of the old models moving forward, everything is being replaced with KTM derived models. EVERYTHING.
 
No I didn't know that Kyle...I knew there had been some changes but wasn't aware that it was completely sold and that the Strada was dropped from the range...had a look today and the seat height and comfort concerns me, but a test ride tomorrow will answer a few questions...can the height be dropped on these bikes?
 
I tested the Husky and the Vstrom today...Vstrom was superb, Husky was OK...no comparison in terms of comfort and quality. Just got the KLR to try but I think the Vstrom is winning
 
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