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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

Lowering my 250 TE...

I got my bike back from ESP suspension in (La Cresenta Ca). The bike is perfect! Lowered it correctly 1 inch by replacing springs all around. Suspension/sag was set up for my weight. Just did about 50 miles of single track , fire roads, whoops and tight rocky turns. Wow what a difference! I also had the JD kit put on and the new Pirelli MT21 tires front and rear. Its perfect. Better handling, way better traction and the jetting kit just rocks ! I am glad I spent the money to lower the suspension. Between shaving the seat, replacing the springs and the lower new tires the seat height is now about 34.5 inches and it is much better for me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mnb
Thanks for the advice (Monty Carlo) and (HUSKYnXJnWI). My inseam is about 31.5 Inches and I am on my tippy toes on flat pavement. I will probably start with the forks up a bit and the sag and then just ride it for a while. We just got a dump of snow and cold weather so the bike is in the garage until things clear up. In the long run I'd like to get it down about an inch to an inch and a half so doing it the right way will happen sooner than later. :p take care
 
I got my bike back from ESP suspension in (La Cresenta Ca). The bike is perfect! Lowered it correctly 1 inch by replacing springs all around. Suspension/sag was set up for my weight. Just did about 50 miles of single track , fire roads, whoops and tight rocky turns. Wow what a difference! I also had the JD kit put on and the new Pirelli MT21 tires front and rear. Its perfect. Better handling, way better traction and the jetting kit just rocks ! I am glad I spent the money to lower the suspension. Between shaving the seat, replacing the springs and the lower new tires the seat height is now about 34.5 inches and it is much better for me.

I was trying to find some specs on the Pirelli MT21. Do you know what the profile height is? I just shaved my seat and I'm looking for a bit lower overall.
 
I was trying to find some specs on the Pirelli MT21. Do you know what the profile height is? I just shaved my seat and I'm looking for a bit lower overall.


I got the Pirelli MT21 180/80/18 and it is at least a half an inch lower in profile than the Karoos it came with
 
I agree with lowering by palcing stops in the front and rear components. If you buy a bike because of its handling. it seems a shame to cut corners. That said, I have a 30" inseam and the only lowering I've done is by shaving the seat foam, because I didn't want to loose any of my travel. I use up almost all I have each ride.
Just remember, Shane Watts is only 5'7".
 
Just remember, Shane Watts is only 5'7".

I doubt anyone here is as good a rider as Shane, so that argument isn't really valid. The fact is, it is easier for a newer rider to have a bike where they can reach the ground reasonably (flat footing it is not necessary, but solidly placing the toes to the balls of both feet at a minimum is ideal). Should they reach an advanced level of skill, they can return the bike to full height. Or just not modify their next bike.
 
I doubt anyone here is as good a rider as Shane, so that argument isn't really valid. The fact is, it is easier for a newer rider to have a bike where they can reach the ground reasonably (flat footing it is not necessary, but solidly placing the toes to the balls of both feet at a minimum is ideal). Should they reach an advanced level of skill, they can return the bike to full height. Or just not modify their next bike.
Argument? If you read the rest of my post, I said I agree with lowering the bike by placing stops in the components.
No arguing here.
 
I lowered my first bike - a DRZ400 with a koubalink & a corbin seat. Back then I felt I needed the help as I'm only 5'8" with a short inseam. I then trained myself to stand all the time no matter what. It got to where I was way more comfortable standing on the bike vs. sitting - in almost all conditions. That was the ticket for me, as I eventually took the koubalink off the DRZ & I haven't lowered any of my following bikes (2huskies), nor wanted to.
 
I know there are many who think that lowering a bike is a bad idea.. I strongly disagree. If done properly it can actually make for better handling and giving up an inch of clearance is no big deal unless you are going to do some extreme riding or racing. For most of us "weekenders" having a bike that we can get a foot or two down is a good thing. It increases confidence and makes for an all around better experience. I have a friend who is 6'5" and he just cannot understand lowering it.. ( of course.. I'd like to put him on a 40 inch tall bike and see how he likes it lol) and yes there are 5' 5" riders on bikes with 37 inch seat heights and kill it.. but thats not me. One inch lower on the front and back.. better springs.. better lower tires and a shaved seat and I am all good at 5'8" .. Off to the Mojave tomorrow. ( with both feet on the ground !)
 
Back
Top