HUSKY XC 250

THE ULTIMATE WOODS BIKE?

You Have to Ride it Hard

By the staff of Dirt Bike, with special thanks to Dick Burleson

Basically, we were sitting around the

now famous Dirt Bike offices discuss-

ing the merits of King Richard’s 7th

national enduro title, when a strange

thought crossed our minds. How does

that sucker keep winning year after

year? It couldn’t all be his skill; you

can’t win on that alone. No way, Jose.

A percentage has to be the bike, other-

wise, the almighty YEN would have

lured him away long ago.

Since Dick has had such a tremend-

ous allegiance to Husky, maybe it was

that he was riding totally trick, one-off

bikes that would have any factory

rider drooling. Anyway, we decided to

press on and, with a couple of calls to

Husky, a bike was lined up for the last

National Enduro of the year. This

would be a race test on a typically tight

woods run found in the Midwest. The

bike would be a 1981 Husky XC25O.

Box stock. If there was any magic to

this Swedish iron, we'd find out, real

quick.

Wondering what the XC stands for?

We were too. Simply stated, it means

Cross-Country. Makes sense even to

our feeble minds. The XC has taken

the place of last years OR models.

Folks at Husky felt that too many

people associated OR with desert rid-

Since our bike was preproduction, it wasn't equipped with the FIM style number

plates that will be found on the showroom models.

ing and XC would broaden the capa-

bilities of the new Husky.

First Impressions

As we rolled the XC out of the van,

the first thought was jeez, check out

those big forks. Big indeed; 40mm to

be exact. They looked giant compared

to the pencils found on last year’s bike.

“Almost 12 inches in those babies,

and not a flex to be found,’’ beamed

Dick, as we threw it on the stand.

Second, a large void existed between

the rear fender and tire; 12 plus! It

looked more like a motocrosser than

anything. Dick explained that the ma-

jority of people racing Huskys were

taking the CRs, putting a spark-arrest-

or on ’em and riding the local event.

Dick’s been doing it for a couple of

years, so Husky decided to offer a

woods bike with the long legs of the

MXer. While the travel is increased,

the seat height remains a mere 38

inches; still short enough for Burle-

son’s small 5’9” frame.

The other thing that caught our

attention was the totally redesigned

gas tank. While still incorporating the

traditional good looks of the old Hus-

ky gas tanks, the new one is much slim-

mer, making weight transfer to the

front of the seat a simple proced-

ure. In the past, they were fairly bulky

at the seat/tank junction and sliding

forward could result in instant grief.

Even with the slimmer profile, 55

miles to a tank is no problem.

Other Zoot, Stock Tidbits

Huskys have been coming stock

with Ohlins shocks for the last couple

of years. The XC is equipped with the

new generation piggyback style shocks.

These state-of-the-art units feature

Heim joints and dual-rate springs.

Piggybacks eliminate the hoses and

reservoirs from being bolted in strange

places on the bike.

Both top and bottom shock mounts

incorporate studs welded to the frame

and swingarm that the shock slips on-

to. Two 6mm bolts hold them in place.

Sano setup. Easily removed, no nuts

to mess with and the whole system is

well thought out. The mounting stud

on the swingarm is angled upward five

degrees. During compression, this

forces the shock inward on the swing-

arm, rather than outward. This takes

all the load off of the 6mm bolts hold-

ing them in place. Ingenious. Dust

seals are found on the bushings, and

these insure a long life for the Heim

joint.

Noise emitted from the Husky was

very low. Two reasons for this: 1.) The

expansion chamber, which is primar-

ily a CR unit, is constructed with two

walls. Between the walls, there’s a lay-

er of fiberglass, helping to keep the

decibel level down. 2.) The icing on the

cake is the spark-arrestor/silencer,

which also makes it off-road legal

wherever you ride.

Again, a 17-inch rear wheel appears

as a stock item, a factor that keeps the

seat height low while still allowing a

long-travel rear end. The gold rims re-

main, and the folks at Husky assured

us that the problem of the paint flak-

ing off is history; only time will tell.

The rims are accented by the gold

front forks, giving the bike a function-

al look while keeping the good Euro-

pean lines...