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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

TR650 suspension

J

Jaquesdp

Husqvarna
B Class
Hi guys,

I'm about to take the plung into yet another adventure and the Husky took my attention,I love the bike but the suspension issue get raised a lot,it has less travel than most other adventures but does it work well enough?

I just ride gravel roads and some tricky stuff now and again,I don't wanna go full off-road as I still want to be able to ride on Tarmac and pillion my wife but still wanna play in dirt over weekend..

My previous bikes were

Bmw F800gs which was nice bike but heavy in tricky stuff and the suspension was very soft it bottomed a lot.

Yamaha Tenere 660 was also very nice and can't remember that I really had any problems.

Ktm 640 adventure the bike vibrated like hell and irritated me but the suspension was awesome on gravel..

How does the Husky compare to Yamaha Tenere (660)

If it's the same or better I'm ordering my Husky tommorow.

Thanks guys
 
I love the bike. What do you weigh? The stock suspension is great for me at 170 pounds. I ride tons of gravel and it holds up to all but the biggest bumps. In the 8 months I have had her she has only bottomed out twice, and both times I was going too fast and not trying to lighten the front when I hit. I have had bikes that were twice the price and half as much fun.

We don't get the little Tenere here in the states so I can't attest to the ride similarities. I can say that I went into the dealership here planning to buy a new BMW (650 or 700) and left with the Husky.
 
I find the suspension well balanced for the mission but you have to remember these have very little adjustment and are budget parts. Very good for what they are and pretty good middle of the road settings.
 
FWIW I have had 2 KTM 640 Adventures.
I found their suspension/chassis to be really great on gravel, sand roads and even some trail use.
I wanted to Rally Moto race them, but never did.

The Terra is just not in that league at all.
I have no interest/desire to Rally Moto race the Terra
BUT it is a joy to ride everywhere.
I gladly take the Terra engine smoothness over the 640 chassis.
 
Jaquesdp said:
Hi guys,

I just ride gravel roads and some tricky stuff now and again,I don't wanna go full off-road as I still want to be able to ride on Tarmac and pillion my wife but still wanna play in dirt over weekend..
Click to expand...
That's exactly what I did with my Strada turned Terra over the weekend. Rode the bike with camping gear 500km to a popular dirt bike area, was able to ride on the same stuff as the 250s....just not as quickly or as much suspension travel, then rode a slightly different 450kms home afterward.

Don't have the Tenere 660's over here, but found it to be far better than a KLR for both offroad and onroad and not as good offroad as an XR650R, but WAY better at the road and packing stuff.

Jaquesdp said:
If it's the same or better I'm ordering my Husky tomorrow..
Click to expand...

I'm not sure there's any to "order". Remember that all that have been made...are made. They're now just selling the few remaining 2014s they have in the warehouses and showroom floors.
 
I can't compare to the 660 Tenere but I can compare to the XT660R. The Terra engine is stronger and smoother than the Yamaha. Suspension felt about the same (I am not a good judge of suspension). The Terra is a much better bike to ride on the blacktop than the Yamaha, which had much more engine vibration and less wind protection at 100kph.
 
I bottom the suspension, front and rear, just about every time I take it on the trails. I know I probably ride it too hard but it's the only bike I have right now and I treat it like a dirt bike. I'm about 200 lbs with full gear. So far it's taken all the abuse I can give it. About 5000 miles worth. If you can find one get it quick.
 
Did do a little research and found that the rear F650GS (thumper) aka G650GS shock measures 12.5 inches from eye to eye. Measuring the shock as best I can on the bike, the TR650 looks to be right at the same measurement, possibly a 1/4 inch shorter. The attachment points appear to be the exact same. Given the amount of aftermarket shocks out there, the possibilities are pretty open as to finding one. I am planning on trying to graft one on to the TR. I have not been able to confirm what the stock length is for the SERTAO BMW but want to compare as well.
 
Two of us ran the TR's on the COBDR this year and found the suspension absolutely up to the task. Not a "dirt bike", but much better than I thought it would be. We were fully loaded with gear, saddle bags, etc.
 
ok im 6' 225 lbs, i packed 50 lbs of camping gear on it. I had no problems on back roads, dirt and and gravel roads and some pretty washed out fire roads. once i shed the camp gear. it was on to the power line trails. the suspension works fine at low speed 20 mph. a better trail rider would have kept the bike up right more than i did.:p
 
In my opinion the suspension should have more travel, don't get me wrong - its very good but you will bottom it easily in rough terrain or if you push a bit. But it is excellent on road.

My background is dirt bikes so I probably push it a little more that intended. Even so it is very well balanced and well behaved off road and I really enjoy riding it.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the bike.
 
I have a Terra and tested the TENERE 660. The engine of the TERRA is much better in all regards. The suspension is mor or less on par but I did not had the chance to go into real dirt. The Terra does look so much better :-) but it is a bit smaller. If you are tall then you need to make some adjustments to have a perfect fit.
 
XT660R got the same engine like Tenere and I got it tested extensively while preparing to buy my current bike. Terra's got much better engine hands down - more power, more torque and much smoother. Although you can easily tweak Xt660 engine with aftermarket parts (like big-bore cylinders or other racing parts), which might not be possible for Terra (not to large extent anyway). Straight from factory, XT's engine got much more problems with stumbling than Terra (o2 sensor is a weak point: http://www.off-the-road.de/en/XT-66...ning-XT-660-Z/O2-Sensor-eliminator-XT660.html that might be the way to do it for Terra though). Lots of aftermarket parts available for XT... LOTS

Suspension-wise its at par - similar travel, similarly undersprung :cool:

What is really discouraging in case of XT'660R is that exhaust line being placed right down below engine. Just asking for disaster while driving off-road. Tenere got it better. Might be tweaked - there are complete exhausts with lines moved up and lined sideways. Not really much more expensive than 'normal' aftermarket exhaust.

Tenere was too high for my needs...

I would say XT is fantastic platform for good dual-sport but needs further investment. What I would do would be to buy slightly used XT, add 50% more of the budget to tweak it heavily (at least exhaust, serious suspension, engine tweaks to improve torque and some protection parts) and that all would make it very good. At the price much higher than Terra. Terra is that much better straight away from factory :) and if you add some money to it, Terra would outshine XT hands down...

2013-yamaha-xt660r-eu-racing-blue-studio-002.jpg
 
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