• 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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

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    Thanks for your patience and support!

Brads 360 GP bike photo - his favorite ?

GaryM

Husqvarna
AA Class
John and I were lucky enough to talk with Brad about his favorite Husky racing bike at Unadilla rewind a couple years ago.
Unsure if this was the final version he liked the best but here is another rare photo I found
on web to share to keep on this site. Nothing like hi tech duct tape !

John let me know was this the bike ? Brads 360 his favorite Husky.jpg
 
That 1976 was likely his last before moving to Honda and was likely an early 1977 390CR. The 250CR I saw him with at the 1976 Southwick national was similar with leading axle forks. I got a real close look as I was flagging that race and got to meet him at the starting gates as I was at the 1st turn.

Being built on the 77 CR -78 ML frame it was the best handling Husqvarna of the 70's
 
The one comment that Brad made was that there was not bike faster in the class at the time. The bike was the one he came back to race the national
with that helped Jimmy Weinert win the national championship in New Orleans race. I will have to go back and watch the Motocross files video on that race.

I swear you are right on handling. It been so long but I seem to remember how much fun I had on cornering/ turning my 77 390 with. It loved the night track at Delta. I raced that bike more then any. Raced that bike three times a week in summer. Two night races and then on Sun at tracks like Mid Ohio, Baja and Redbud for you Mich/Ohio guys.

The later 80 390 well I don't remember cornering as well , but I do remember it really tackled the whoops and bumps better then anything.
 
Check this out Kent Howerton bike on warm up lap at Mid ohio.

Well what do you think of the setting on his shocks with all that sag ? I think this bike will turn.
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John and I were lucky enough to talk with Brad about his favorite Husky racing bike at Unadilla rewind a couple years ago.
Unsure if this was the final version he liked the best but here is another rare photo I found
on web to share to keep on this site. Nothing like hi tech duct tape !

John let me know was this the bike ? View attachment 58676

LOOK HOW FAR LAYED DOWN THE SHOCKS ARE****************************************!! ALMOST HORIZONTAL!! Very cool shot
 
Yes, the 76 360 I've got with Jim's modified frame (77 125CR/78 390Auto) turns well, as long as you have the suspension balanced right.
With the shocks set too soft the it rode like a chopper, put stiffer springs on & turn up the spring tension, transformed it.

Your correct both my 80 390CR & 82 430CR don't turn as well as the 360. I ride those differently using more rear wheel spin to turn
the bike, rather then the front.
 
Brad found out in 1977 what a fast bike was when he was racing the Honda RC-400 in GPs.

John, the only mod I did to the frame was press in the Timken bearing caps off my project ML frame. No geometry change whatsoever! Came from Husqvarna that way in 77 with the CR only.
 
The race in New Orleans was the end of '75, Brads bike was a 390 but it had straight leg forks and the early ML rear suspension.
 
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