#Husqvarna

Recently, MO was given the rare opportunity to go behind the scenes at KTM and look inside the walls of its hallowed R&D department. Riding a wave of recent success with its strong sales and rapidly growing portfolio in the past decade, KTM felt the time was right to celebrate a little and give its fans a glimpse into what makes a KTM a KTM. While in Austria touring the KTM factory, we also got a chance to visit with Gerald Kiska and tour his studio. While there, we also got a sneak peek into its inner workings, and how a KTM (or Husqvarna) goes from computer sketch to production motorcycle.

Husqvarna’s heavenly 701 Enduro has an evil twin. Not a two-cylinder sister, mind you, and that’s probably a good thing because the potent single-cylinder powerplant and sweet-handling chassis of the 2016 Husqvarna 701 Supermoto are sufficient to cast a spell on you whenever you ride it. And your driver’s license may be forever cursed.

Just two years into its new lease on life under the wing of KTM, Husqvarna has come a long way in a short time, shattering the brand’s global sales volume record two years in a row. Husky bid ‘Hej då’ to the record set during its Swedish heyday, with 16,000 units sold globally in 2014. That figure jumped another 20% in 2015, with 20,500 units sold; the U.S. market garnered 27% of those sales.

Spy photographers have spotted what appears to be a café racer-styled prototype with what looks like the Single-cylinder engine and frame of the KTM 690 Duke. Now, the test rider’s KTM-branded helmet and jacket may foreshadow an orange-clad future for the finished product, but the H-branded gloves and café racer style suggest the new model will instead wear Husqvarna blue, white and yellow once the camouflage is lifted.

Editor Score:87.5%

Alongside the new 701 Supermoto production model comes a pair of scrambler concepts from Husqvarna. Dubbed the 401 Svartpilen (Swedish for “Black Arrow”) and 401 Vitpilen (“White Arrow”), the two concepts draw upon the company’s past while still offering a futuristic styling.

Husqvarna revealed a new street legal 701 Supermoto, the final production version of the concept model unveiled at last year’s EICMA show.

The motorcycle show season continues in Milan, Italy, for EICMA, the World Motorcycle Expo. Last year’s show was fantastic, but the 2014 edition promises to be even more spectacular as EICMA celebrates its 100th anniversary.

In a class where keeping up with the latest technology can mean the difference between being on the podium and being left at the starting gate, Yamaha’s YZ250F was waaayy loooong overdue for an update in 2014. The Blu Cru’s quarter-liter four-stroke could do little more than hold its own against its rivals, suffering a power deficit and lacking a more precise and easier to tune fuel-injection system. If only Yamaha could come up with something more competitive while retaining the 250F’s excellent handling character…

The Mojave desert ain’t nuttin to mess with. Intense UV radiation, gale-force winds, 120+ degree summers, but ironically well-below freezing last night. In other words, it’s an off-road enthusiast’s paradise, a Martian terrascape resplendent in blasted rock, jagged peaks, and tight boulder-filled canyons. Quite simply, this is a place that breaks humans and machines of every stripe.

With 2014 just around the corner, it’s time to take a look back at the year that was and revisit the top news stories from the motorcycling world in 2013.

Okay, I admit it. I’m a wheelie-holic. I’d practice wheelies on my bicycle, but I’ve been absolutely addicted to them since discovering an engine’s anti-gravity effects on a dirt bike’s front tire when I was 12 and abusing my amazingly durable Suzuki DS80 on the Canadian prairie.