• 4 Stroke Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Italy - About 1989 to 2014
     TE = 4st Enduro & TC = 4st Cross

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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

2 focused bikes or 1 dualsport

I also vote for two bikes. Love my 250 on the trails, however the 610 is much better suited for long D/S rides. I put 1100 miles on the 610 two weeks ago in eastern Oregon. We had to re-route several time due to snow and this added several hundred miles of pavement. I'm glad I didn't take the 250.
 
I did the compromise thing for a while, used my '07 TE510 for everything, off road, supermoto and a little bit of MX. Spent almost as much time working on it and converting between supermoto and dirt trim as I did riding it. The next year I decided to go the 2 bike route, bought an '08 TC250 and an '08 SMR450. Was great to have a dedicated bike for it's intended purpose and the performance of the dedicated bike was far better than what I could get out of the TE compromise bike. But I found it could be hard to keep up on maintenance having 2 bikes to keep up. If performance matters and money and time allow, I would suggest going with 2 bikes.
 
Two focused bikes, for a few reasons----

1. As mentioned earlier, with one bike, you will be doing maint alot if you truly ride as much as most guys who ride multiple disciplines. 2 normal dual sport rides put you in the "oil change" time zone. I am saying about 6-8 hours each ride. I know on my TE310 the oil doesn't even start to get dirty till around 13 hours, and that is 2 rides. Not to mention you will be constantly changing tires! Having 2 dedicated bikes saves me alot of time and money on tires. I'll buy any good knobby on sale for my Dual Sport tire and only run specific tires on my Woods bike.

2. Make your dual sport bike about comfort and reliability. When you are out exploring and having fun, you want a bike that can get on the highway and do 65MPH and be truly legal as you work between sections or if you need to drop into a town for food and gas etc. Being on a smoker can get attention from cops and such. Sometimes the DLNR folks can be really picky and some of them know 2 stroke really aren't legal. You need a bike that will start up and run. I was on a Dual Sport ride/event this weekend and I saw a couple of guys that were having issues with their Fuel Pumps. I was very happy I had my carb'd 525 with me and left my FI 310 at home. FI has a ways to go to become more reliable in off roading. My 310 died on me in an enduro from the Fuel Pump coming out of the mount. It's fixed now, I safety wired it into the mount but that is one more thing I had to worry about. It's not FI itself, it is the components (pumps) used that suck. Husabergs are having issue with the fuel heating up from the exhaust and causing the pumps to fail. Saw that this weekend. Once the bike cooled, it would start and run again. Cost the guy a nice ride as he was affraid to continue, so he went back to the start about 2 hours into the event. I still say give me a carb anyday cause when you are out in the woods, miles and miles from base camp, having FI issues suck as it is not just the pump functioning, it is also more electronics/connections that can go bad.
 
Focused bikes for me without question. Every dual sport I've ever ridden was decent on the road and decent in the woods, at best. And heavy as can be... I did not like the 07' TE450 I rode at all. Too lethargic and heavy for my liking. I'm a little more anal than most though as I have a dedicated mx'r, a dedicated dune bike and a dedicated woods bike. My next bike will be a dedicated street bike... probably a Japanese v-twin cruiser for trips to the coast. And then a ZX11 for track days and railing mtn roads. And then maybe a Goldwing for interstate activity. And probably a new wife or two along the way.
Just kidding.... I'm scared of the idiots I share the road with. I'll stick to the dirt.

Even if I was serious.... it's cheaper than dope or therapy!
 
I have a TE 310 and a Multistrada. Thought long and hard about the Multi. I will always trail ride and always have a Husky so I looked at heaps of DS offerings. The more I looked the more I realised that it was a bike that was only at the margin a DS bike that fitted my bill. This is predicated on the versatilty of todays enduros and the fact that the cross over between a 310/and say a 630 is not too wide. Therefore to get the spread and differing type of riding covered the 310 and Multi make a good match for me.
 
Hey, great advice and the consensus seems to be 2 bikes are better than 1. I just did a 5 day trip and put over 200 miles on my Gasser and have to say that I just cant part with the bike. 200 miles of trail riding and loved every minute on this bike.
I think a nice adventure bike or 600 cc dualsport will be added at some point to the garage for dualsporting.
 
Hell, 10 bikes are better than two. I just can't get my wife to let me buy more than one.

Don't think I haven't tried!
 
I keep telling the wife we need a new house with bigger garage. Her response is I need to sell one of the six bikes. She just doesn't get it....
 
you have two choices for a DOT legal DS.

TE or Katoom. Id get the TE based soley on product support and dealer networking. KTM could learn a LOT from HVA.

jap stuff BLOWS. have fun with that garbage.

NEVER sell a two-stroke, esp a GG. days are number fer them begin buy-able over here.
 
I need to get serious about selling it. I've had really good luck on Craigslist selling bikes. The GF's TTR225 needs to go too
 
A bike for every occasion

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Haha! Nice....this was helpful...and more confusing for me....not compromising is compromising if you dont have the cash for 2.
 
So, the hunt continues for the right DS. I am keeping my Gasser for sure, but got the OK on purchasing a DS.

I am all over the map in terms of what I want. I know that ultimatetly, I do not want a street oriented or adventure bike. First, I have no one to ride with, second, I dont like riding on the street/road that much (scares me). But, I am torn and have considered everything from a TE250 - TE610. I have even looked at a Beta 525 and KTM's.

So, I went and rode a '11 TE250, just to see what it is like. I have to say, it is a very fun bike! I could totally see opening up my garage, riding 10 miles of country roads and hitting the gravel, 2-track and trails the exist for miles and miles just minutes from my house. It seems to be out of umph at 50 mph, but that is with the 50T woods gearing. I was thinking I could throw on a 14T CS sprocket and still be able to do the trails I have planned.

The thing is, I dont like riding by myself, so the guys who I would be riding with would be doing similar riding. My only concern is that I do want to try a couple of backcountry trips with multi-day, long miles, etc. These would be nearly entirely off-road, but most of the folks I see doing these trips are on big adventure bikes or KTM 450/525.

Any more advice?
 
Wow! That is one clean '02. I am really leaning toward something new/newer, and I want to get something that is street legal from factory since Oregon is such a pain with plates.

Leaning toward the TE250, would be a hoot in the woods, but worry about any road time. Maybe the TE449.
 
Well, more researching reveals that the TE250 is probably too small for what I have in mind.

I looked at a Beta 525 ($6999), KTM 530 ($9300) and Husky TE449 ($7499). KTM is just waaay overpriced IMO. Paying too much for the name. Beta is very interesting, but not sure where they are headed in the US market and if I resale is horrible. Husky is also interesting. Great reviews, seems practical for what I have in mind, but 1st year production bike scares me a bit.

So, would a good old-fashioned DRZ or XRL really be so bad? I am thinking it might be a good starting point.
 
Dr-z 650 s are very popular in OZ still - for a good reason they are reliable and good to ride. Put on a big tank fix the suspension up a bit and for adventure riding and road it would be a very good choice - cheap and easy to sell later
 
firffighter said:
Well, more researching reveals that the TE250 is probably too small for what I have in mind.

I looked at a Beta 525 ($6999), KTM 530 ($9300) and Husky TE449 ($7499). KTM is just waaay overpriced IMO. Paying too much for the name. Beta is very interesting, but not sure where they are headed in the US market and if I resale is horrible. Husky is also interesting. Great reviews, seems practical for what I have in mind, but 1st year production bike scares me a bit.

So, would a good old-fashioned DRZ or XRL really be so bad? I am thinking it might be a good starting point.
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I never get the resale argument, If you pay $2300 less for the same type of bike (Beta) you are ahead about 2K... right? Later you go to sale said bike and the resale is not as good for this bike and you get about 2K less for it... What have you lost? With the KTM you are guaranteed to be behind $2300 the day you buy it, that's a lot of bling added to the lesser priced bike.

I'm not a Beta salesman but I applied the same logic when I bought my left over 09 WR250 for $4,800 and the cheapest comparable KTM was $5,700
 
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