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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

Richochet Offroad 449/511 Guard/Skid Plate Review

borpa

borpa

Husqvarna
A Class
I picked up a barely used TXC 511 3 days before our annual MOAB trip and wanted to bring it along to try it out. The factory skid/guard was in place and in my opinion is satisfactory for nearly all riding as proved by the Zipty Racing team but for the type of bashing we do I wanted more hefty protection. In particular I desired something that flared out to protect the engine from the ever present rocks we encounter. Having punched holes in more than one engine case in Moab I didnt want history to repeat itself.

I called up Ricochet which is a company I have dealt with in the past. One of the unique things about Ricochet is that they created applications for trucks/Jeeps utilizing aluminum without sacrificing protection. This weight savings is dramatic for a fully skidded vehicle and trusting their work I called them to see what they had for this bike. True to their history they had a plate and got it to me in time to install before the trip.

I didnt weigh the plate prior to instal but it certainly weighs more than the factory plastic plate which I will use when not banging rocks. It bolted right up in no time with the hardware provided. As desired it flares out past both left and right engine sides without effecting foot position or shifting/braking.
On our first run I could hear rocks pinging off this plate. Kinda made me smile. Long story short after runs thru Pritchet, area BFE and every other trails the plate held up and had plenty of scratches proving its effectiveness. Several times I smacked the sides unto rocks that would have at least got my shifter/brake levers and most likely bit the cases. All was good. Its not the lightest compared to the plastic offerings but if protection at a minimal weight gain is desired this is a great deal at $99.00.IMG_1441.jpgIMG_1435.jpg
 
How was the noise? I have to say that my biggest complaint about aluminum plates is all the noise it reflects back from the motor. I LOVE - I mean LOVE - the silence of the new TE drivetrain. I would hate for it to be ruined by all the clanky clankity of the motor. I used to think that plastic was for kids bikes - but have to say that after numerous trips to Moab and all over Colorado the plastic does really well. I also feel they perform better for log hops as the slide way easier.

BTW, Pritchett is simply stunning - my favorite ride on earth is out Cane Creek to Behind the Rocks and then come back home via Pritchett - my top 3 moments on two wheels happen on that loop every time.
 
Agree on all points**************************************** My favorite loop too. Slide was actually as big a consideration. This plate is flat and slid great but I cant honestly comment on noise as I barely rode it with the plastic. Im pretty hard of hearing though......22 years in the army took care of most annoying noises for me:)
 
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