• 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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

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    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!

Is the 2012 TE310 good for the old man with bad knees? :)

D

Dustyridr

Husqvarna
Would like to get opinions from the readers here. I'm almost 52 and my knees are pretty much shot after 23 years in the Army. When I retired and started racing again, a hidden rock blew up my right elbow so now I'm the old guy looking for a solid dual sport ride, but no more racing or 4-5 hour mountain rides on the weekends. I envision removing the knobbies and putting on some type of semi-smooth, street/dirt tires for some regular good old trail riding. I've ridden plenty of big, piggy KLR 650s and I don't want anything to do with weight/weight distribution like that.

Is the TE310 a good choice or am I missing something better in the small dual sport world?
 
Well I'm young at 28 and had reconstructive knee surgery 10 years ago, acl,mcl, lat meniscus, and fractured femur, and now have more arthritis in my knee then a 60 yr old man. I ride mostly dirt so lots of standing I have the txc310, the bike is great but for sitting on longer stretches say road or longer fire road it feels a little cramped and find myself standing to stop my knee from stiffening up. I did have a wr250 supermotard Yamaha that is and that was just fine for me. I think it had to do with the distance from the peg to the seat. But hope any of that helped best of luck
 
How tall and heavy are you? What type of riding? Sounds like you will be doing road mixed with moderate trails?

To give you some perspective, I'm 31 but 5'11" and 135lbs. Been riding for a few years. I can ride the TE 250 easily , it handles very well but would like more power - thinking about the 310 - maybe 450 cause I have a tendency to do road rides to the trails, most trails are not too difficult... it's usually a good 5-15 miles from trails , and I would like to be able to stop by a friends place as well.

I would be tempting to suggest a TE 449 for ya - from what I understand , it's only 10-15 lbs heavier (wet weight around 255lbs with 2.25 gallons on fuel). Even a 449 is probably quite a bit lighter then the KLR 650s.

On my TE250, desmogged and fully powered up with 50 rear sprocket, I can manage to roll around 40 - 45mph in 6th without straining the engine too much (6000rpms, ok maybe a little strain but on the bottom part of the powercurve ;) . I would like to hover around 50-55 for the road riding connecting trails and such , so I may get a 449 and gear to a 50 rear. That should easily maintain 50-55 mph for stretches, while still giving me some 1st and 2nd gear crawling through trails with plenty of grunt if need be.
 
Dustyridr said:
Would like to get opinions from the readers here. I'm almost 52 and my knees are pretty much shot after 23 years in the Army. When I retired and started racing again, a hidden rock blew up my right elbow so now I'm the old guy looking for a solid dual sport ride, but no more racing or 4-5 hour mountain rides on the weekends. I envision removing the knobbies and putting on some type of semi-smooth, street/dirt tires for some regular good old trail riding. I've ridden plenty of big, piggy KLR 650s and I don't want anything to do with weight/weight distribution like that.

Is the TE310 a good choice or am I missing something better in the small dual sport world?
Click to expand...

I have a 2012 TE 310 and a '12 Beta 350 RS. I prefer the Beta but it is a bit more $$. Stock the Beta is a lot smoother (wide ratio trans) and easier to ride with a more tractor like power curve, Also a bit lower so easier to get on and off. Ground learance is close to the same. I'll be adding the ECU and injector soon to the 310 so I hope it will smooth out the power and make it more appealing. Both bikes have similar front and rear sprockets with the Beta having the internal gearing advantage for top speed or freeway or highway transitions by maybe 20 mph.
 
Well I'm around 5'11" and just under 200 lbs and while I love to fly through the woods and up hills, the knees just can't take too much of that abuse. I have a 1200GT to do all the road riding on that I want (with the cruise control on), but the woods are begging me to come back. I'm with Lambe67, I think that a lot of it has to do with the seat to peg height. You just don't have to stand up that much doing easier trails, but it's similar to being crammed into a small seat on an airplane, the knees start to ache after a little bit. Unfortunately my knee pain is from extreme wear and tear (think of a non o-ring chain after about a year of good racing - lol) so there's not much choice outside of a knee replacement 10 - 20 years from now. If I went with a bigger bike, like say the 650 Terra, it would be much smoother on trails and dirt roads, but you couldn't possibly take it into anything rough.

All you young bucks make me feel good though. I appreciate all the answers. The dealer wants me to come in yesterday to get a bike. I'll just have to figure out what to do. Thanks all,
 
If you're looking at more open stuff, the 449 is a better choice. The 310 is great in more technical stuff. But quite frankly, the TR650 sounds like what you're really looking for. Your knees can't handle anything really rough.
 
Dustyridr said:
Would like to get opinions from the readers here. I'm almost 52 and my knees are pretty much shot after 23 years in the Army. When I retired and started racing again, a hidden rock blew up my right elbow so now I'm the old guy looking for a solid dual sport ride, but no more racing or 4-5 hour mountain rides on the weekends. I envision removing the knobbies and putting on some type of semi-smooth, street/dirt tires for some regular good old trail riding. I've ridden plenty of big, piggy KLR 650s and I don't want anything to do with weight/weight distribution like that.

Is the TE310 a good choice or am I missing something better in the small dual sport world?
Click to expand...

I'd get a dual sport bike not a racer to putt around on.
WRR/TE630/DR650 etc..
 
..I can't too much help on the dual sport thing but I am 55 and rt. knee is been bone on bone for 4+ years and the left has maybe 1 more arthroscopic surgery left(unless something else happens)I had givin' up riding per my docs advice but after a couple years I said screw it.I am 5'10" 185lbs. and have been physically active all my life(began racing over 39 years ago).I have a WR125 and a TC250 and I am on them every chance I get. I've ridden the TC on some very long trail rides and I am VERY HAPPY with it.I have to sit alot more then I care to,but certain sacrifices are needed.I guess depending on your personal strengths and weakness's you should be able to adapt with the 310.Taller bars, footpegs and seat options are there if you find you need to fine tune your bike.My TC is stock,except I rotated the bar clamps forward for better transition from sitting to standing .Best of luck to you.
 
I'm 56 and 5'10 with a bad left knee these days. I find the 310 is an all day driver. I cannot ride my Ducati Sport 1k for more than 20 minutes at a time due to legs compressed, crotch compression, etc... with clip ons and rear sets. I want to, but not being what I was in my twenties, I'm relieved that the 310 has a comfortable position and even the seat is good. I did adjust my brake pedal down a bit and other than pedal adjustments to suit, I'de say fine for bad knees. Standing and sitting the ergos are good with the TE 310.
 
I'm 44 and all banged up too riding a 2012 TE 310. If you're looking for a small bore lighter weight dual sport that's fun on the trails you can't go wrong with the TE. Map I is very docile and Map II is a little more aggressive although plenty tame compared to a mxer. I'm surprised by glangston's comment that he needed to smooth it out. My 310 is a kitten but maybe that's because I'm comparing it to my 450TXC. For woods riding racing I'm running a 50t rear sprocket. It's the easiest to ride most fun trail bike I've owned that still allows you to honk along at a good clip through the woods. I also have a supermoto set of wheels to play with but with the decent weather we've had this year haven't been willing to take off the knobbies and try them.
 
I'm 57 and have gone from a series of KTM RFS, big XR's to the TE610 and TE630....and while I like the big sleds for a lot of the long offroad trips I do - the 310 is a lot less tiring.
It rewards aggressive riding, and isn't unlike riding my KTM 250 EXC smoker - light is right!
 
I'm 57 and have gone from a series of KTM RFS, big XR's to the TE610 and TE630....and while I like the big sleds for a lot of the long offroad trips I do - the 310 is a lot less tiring.
It rewards aggressive riding, and isn't unlike riding my KTM 250 EXC smoker - light is right!
 
I'm 57 and have gone from a series of KTM RFS, big XR's to the TE610 and TE630....and while I like the big sleds for a lot of the long offroad trips I do - the 310 is a lot less tiring.
It rewards aggressive riding, and isn't unlike riding my KTM 250 EXC smoker - light is right!
 
I'm 57 and have gone from a series of KTM RFS, big XR's to the TE610 and TE630....and while I like the big sleds for a lot of the long offroad trips I do - the 310 is a lot less tiring.
It rewards aggressive riding, and isn't unlike riding my KTM 250 EXC smoker - light is right! A Feb week in Baja is going to make me see how light I can pack
 
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I'm 57 and have gone from a series of KTM RFS, big XR's to the TE610 and TE630....and while I like the big sleds for a lot of the long offroad trips I do - the 310 is a lot less tiring.
It rewards aggressive riding, and isn't unlike riding my KTM 250 EXC smoker - light is right! A Feb week in Baja is going to make me see how light I can pack
 
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