07 KTM Street legal rumors - Husabergs too?

Although Husaberg could be made into a street legal, I think it would be a bad choice for one. It is a race bike, plain and simple. If it is required to get sales because others have set a precident, that is another story. I would rather see Husaberg raise the performance bar higher (to further distance itself from other brands). Otherwise, it is just another choice in the sea of bikes. Where do we want Hbg/BMG to spend their resources (and ultimately ours)? Suzuki makes the best DS bike, Husaberg (and TM too) makes the best race bike, all the others are muddled in between. But that's just my opinion.

TM-Enduro, You say what????

Please define "best"!! Suzuki makes the best DS bike, Husaberg (and TM too) makes the best race bike,

If what you say is true how come I never see Husaberg or TM on the AMA supercross podium. Then you say Suzuki makes best DS? Ever hear of the KTM Adventure. Ever hear of The Dakar race. What world do you live in?

Mackberg :wink:

Bigbob
I bought a 97 FE600 Elduro brand new for an ungodly price.I had the dealer install a brake lite switch on the front brake at set up. I have been riding it as a dual sport going on 9 years. Put a set of 17's on two yrs ago to smooth out the ride. I ride it to work and around town all I can. Makes a great city and suburban bike. Light and really handles. One draw back, it's so quick one tends to get a little carried away on adrenalin and forgets to watch for the police. Sometimes the have no sense of humor.

Mackberg :wink:

BBob,your dream is my reality ,yes i cruise the streets on my racebike . it's handy that i can ride it legally on the road , no trailers to worry about .i just jump on and go.

i stop at the petrol station on the way to my many choices of riding areas . at the gas station someone always says what is that a husenberg??.after a brief explanation of the bikes history i head off to my riding area , trying not to flip it as i go .

as for the police , yes you must take care ,but my last road bike was a 190 hp ZX12R . so the 650 berg feels tame in comparison.

Mackberg said:

TM-Enduro, You say what????

Please define "best"!! Suzuki makes the best DS bike, Husaberg (and TM too) makes the best race bike,

If what you say is true how come I never see Husaberg or TM on the AMA supercross podium. Then you say Suzuki makes best DS? Ever hear of the KTM Adventure. Ever hear of The Dakar race. What world do you live in?

Mackberg :wink:

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Mackberg
Suzuki best DS bike. The drz400 is available on most every street corner for a reasonable price. A newby can buy it and fall in love with motorcycles, he can ride in on the road in stock form, he can put on knobbies and go to the ORV park and ride fairly difficult trails, or he can put on (for quite a few more $$$) a set of SM wheels and go motarding.
TM or Husaberg on AMA podium. TM and Husaberg both build enduro bikes (and SM bikes) first, and mx/sx second. They were never intended to be ridden to the corner store or playing on a DS (on road / off-road) polerrun, they are enduro race bikes. TM is not homalgamated in the USA and cannot compete in AMA (mx/sx) races. Husaberg does not make a MX/SX bike anymore. But look at the last ISDE, TM place 5 of the top 10 overall, and they were on production bikes, with only the suspension revalved (stock units) to the particular rider. You can go to a TM dealer (actually pretty hard to find one in the USA), and for $6500 to 8500 you can order the same bike as used by the factory team, no one else does that. Although the factory Husaberg team modifies their bikes some for WEC racing, the bikes start out as race ready machines, and are very popular with "club" level riders. Look over the ISDE results since about 1992, you will see that Husaberg has the highest percentage of gold metals and highest finish rate of any marque.
The KTM adventure, I would love to have one, but I don't know what I would do with it, it's too big for the trails I ride, and there is no desert around here. Dakar, hmm, I don't know anyone that has ridden there, but a DS bike or an enduro racer would not be good choices. You are right, the Adventure or a Dakar do not belong between the DRZ and the Hbg, it is a whole other branch of the tree.
However, I maintain that all the other (enduro) bikes fall in between the all-purpose DRZ and the racer Hbg/TM, and that I hope that if Hbg decides to pursue 50-state street legal status, that they also make sure that Hbg is still the performance bar that others are measured by (don't water it down or let it get long in the tooth).
I will admit that Husky's gamble on getting street legal status looks to be paying off with lots of sales (at the expense of KTM and Japanese bike sales) that ultimately will help fund their HUGE racing contingency program.

Gee, I thought my '05 FS650c WAS street legal, however after discussing the merits of said machine with the California Highway Patrol, the TWO PAGE citation (basically EVERY violation the weasel could think of) it seems not to be......(Thats what I get for being "mature" (my wifes term) and pulling over for him. Grrrrrrr.) :?

RockyMt said:

Gee, I thought my '05 FS650c WAS street legal, however after discussing the merits of said machine with the California Highway Patrol, the TWO PAGE citation (basically EVERY violation the weasel could think of) it seems not to be......(Thats what I get for being "mature" (my wifes term) and pulling over for him. Grrrrrrr.) :?

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Was your bike plated? if so, what were the reasons the chippy gave you for it not being street legal?

interetsed to know because my chippy best bud, just filled out my paparework to get my 04fe550 plated. I intend to try and run it by the dmv... after i install some blinkers and a brake light switch... we'll see what happens....

tm-enduro said:

Suzuki best DS bike. The drz400 is available on most every street corner for a reasonable price. A newby can buy it and fall in love with motorcycles, he can ride in on the road in stock form, he can put on knobbies and go to the ORV park and ride fairly difficult trails, or he can put on (for quite a few more $$$) a set of SM wheels and go motarding.

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you clearly have a slightly different idea of what ds riding is all about. for me, ds riding is the exact same as gnarly fun twisty rocky dezert and mountain singletrack riding except with a plate i can leave FROM MY HOUSE! i can also include 5 miles of road to close a fantastic 100 mile singletrack loop.

as riding areas get smaller, and restrictions get greater, a plate gets more attractive.

tm-enduro said:

Suzuki best DS bike. The drz400 is available on most every street corner for a reasonable price. A newby can buy it and fall in love with motorcycles, he can ride in on the road in stock form, he can put on knobbies and go to the ORV park and ride fairly difficult trails, or he can put on (for quite a few more $$$) a set of SM wheels and go motarding.

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you clearly have a slightly different idea of what ds riding is all about. for me, ds riding is the exact same as gnarly fun twisty rocky dezert and mountain singletrack riding except with a plate i can leave FROM MY HOUSE! i can also include 5 miles of road to close a fantastic 100 mile singletrack loop.

as riding areas get smaller, and restrictions get greater, a plate gets more attractive.

risky1 said:

RockyMt said:

Gee, I thought my '05 FS650c WAS street legal, however after discussing the merits of said machine with the California Highway Patrol, the TWO PAGE citation (basically EVERY violation the weasel could think of) it seems not to be......(Thats what I get for being "mature" (my wifes term) and pulling over for him. Grrrrrrr.) :?

Click to expand...

Was your bike plated? if so, what were the reasons the chippy gave you for it not being street legal?

interetsed to know because my chippy best bud, just filled out my paparework to get my 04fe550 plated. I intend to try and run it by the dmv... after i install some blinkers and a brake light switch... we'll see what happens....

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In a word, NO! The bike has an Akro pipe, slicks, no lights of any kind, no horn, number plates, blah blah blah. Basically I was asking for it, but rather than citing me for riding an off road vehicle on road, he wrote every single applicable infraction (2 PAGES WORTH!) An hour after he wrote me up, I drove my car around the corner on an errand, and he's sitting there hidden in some bushes, I got out and asked him "wassup?" and he asks "checking to see if the coast is clear so you can ride that "death trap again?" To which I responded "dont flatter yourself, I have more to do than keep track of YOU, by the way, the donut shop is a mile THAT way"...(scoring points with the man....) Cant really complain, as I knew better, but jeeze ONCE up and down the block and this clown was ready to shoot me!

velosapiens said:

you clearly have a slightly different idea of what ds riding is all about. for me, ds riding is the exact same as gnarly fun twisty rocky dezert and mountain singletrack riding except with a plate i can leave FROM MY HOUSE! i can also include 5 miles of road to close a fantastic 100 mile singletrack loop.

as riding areas get smaller, and restrictions get greater, a plate gets more attractive.

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No, we both probably have the same basic idea of what a DS bike is. Before my local riding areas shut down, I used to ride my plated Husey (and TM 125 2T) on the road to the trail head and ride. They were both very poor bikes to ride on the road, I would not want to ride 25 miles of pavement each way to go riding on them. They had minimal lights, full knobbies, and no cush hub or clutch, and fuel capacity was a limiting factor as well.
I like having the plate flexability, but putting making the bikes street legal in this country will cost $$$$$, and will add nothing to the racabililty of the 'berg (it is a race bike).

RE: Re: 07 KTM Street legal rumors - Husabergs too?

Interesting discussion on the dual-sport concept. Persponally I would love to see the Husabergs and KTMs be street legal for the enduro models. Here in Wisconsin we have a number of dual-sport rides during the year and we are seeing more Huskys just because you can register them. Our dual sport rides use street sections to connect both county and state trails as well as private riding areas owned by enthusiasts. The street sections are relatvely short but necessary in order to make realistic on and off-road routes. Having a street legal Husaberg would make the bike much more appealing to me. I have a 2001 FE400e I titled in Illinois and then transfered the title to Wisconsin. That is getting harder to do with each year.

Just a note, the DRZ400 is getting a bit dated. I bought a 2006 Kawasaki KLX250S and I find the Kawi superior in every respect to the DRZ except for power output. Just my opinion. Better suspension, 40 pounds lighter, more nimble on the trails. I would love to buy a new Berg that I can just go down to the DMV here and register it easily but that is getting harder and harder. It does not help that we have no dealers in this state. (I also still own the Husaberg, five KTMs and a 1985 Husky 4stroke) .

The Kawi was purchased because I made a personal decision to buy only enduros / dual-sport rides that I can register for street use, even if the only asphalt it sees are the short connector sections in between the dirt. Unless Husaberg and the other Europeans step it up, my next purchase might be a Husky 450 enduro. This street legal arena is important to me because I run basic MSF dirt bike schools as well as the MSF Introduction to Trail Riding Schools in my spare time. At retirement in 3 to 5 years I am adding dual-sport tours in Wisconsin. Every purchase I make from now on has to be able to be street registered since the bikes are ending up in my pool of bikes customers will be riding (thus the purchase of the KLX250S, I can use that in both classes I currently teach).

I would love to have a fleet of Husabergs for my future clientel, but until they are able to be legally registered I will be purchasing a new enduro/dual-sport bike each year for the fleet and it has to be able to be registered here in the state of Wisconsin.

Alex Bub
Wisconsin Off-Road Adventures LLC
(web site will be up in near future)

RE: Re: 07 KTM Street legal rumors - Husabergs too?

bigbob said:

god this thread is old, did I start this silly post? sorry about that. I changed my mind. Let Husky and KTM have the street legal status, Husabergs are race dirt bikes. But a Fe550 and 650 would make great street legal dirt bikes. oops I guess I changed my mind again.

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See, not only 550s and 650s - my '97 Fe501e is plated, and I truely enjoy the opportunity to go and get to a gas station or to not to be scared out of the boundaries of a riding area.
To be honest, I never really understood all the fuzz around plating: where I come from, Austria, a dirtbike is either a MX, and needs to be trailered, or a dualsport - everything else. My last bike there was a '97 KTM EXC300, of course street legal. You have to show up once a year for a technical inspection, and if you pass, you get a sticker good for another year. If not, you take it off the road and make it a MX.
I don't say that one way or the other is good or bad, it is just different. But there are definitely fewer pickup trucks over there, and I used to pull a trailer behind my 55 HP Rabbit Diesel. And yes, it did 80 mph with the trailer :lol:

Franz

Here sitting down under (Australia) all the Husabergs Fe models can be resistered and riden on the road.

The only bikes we can't resister here in Victoria Australia are Quads.
These boys have to use private land or race tracks.
Motor Cross bikes can be fitted with lights and get Reg rego, meaning can't be ridden on made roads.

The dealers even sell "motard kits" to make your dirt weapon into a road hugger,then back again when you like.

We are the lucky country!