Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1045181
2019 HUSQVARNA FS 450 FIRST IMPRESSION P86 WP DCC shock, which now features a new piston. Fork offset is 16mm from the CNC-machined triple clamp. One of Husqvarna's main aims with the FS 450 was more speed, less weight, with the subframe a carbon fiber unit that's 0.6 pounds lighter than last year. Even the new cylinder head weighs one pound less. The show rolls on a supermoto-specif- ic 16.5-inch Alpina spoked wheel up front and a 17-incher at the rear, both wrapped in Bridgestone's 125/80 R420 16.5-inch front and 165/65 R420 17-inch rear slick tires as standard. The brakes, one half of a full superbike setup up front with a single Brembo M50 four-piston radially- mounted caliper clamping a 310mm disc, with the rear using a single-piston caliper biting a 220mm disc. From the hot seat How do you make a bunch of jaded moto journos laugh like little girls? Take them supermoto riding, that's what! Husqvarna bought a select group of us out to Adams Kart Track at Riverside, California, to sample the 2019 FS 450— even though some had not even ridden a supermoto before. For us at CN, this was about our 1200th time around the tiny karting venue, so it gave a good comparison with our home-brewed RM-Z. Everything about FS 450 is designed to do one thing and one thing only—go as fast as possible around the track. On Bridgestones have a much different feel to them. They're stiffer in construction compared to the soft compound Met- zelers I run and thus don't have quite the feedback the formers do, but that's not to say the grip isn't there. Once you learn to trust the Bridge- stone front, you can really start to ex- plore the outer limits of the Husqvarna's turning capability which—unless you're the skill of former AMA Supermoto gun Gary Tracy, who was out there spinning laps with us—will likely be greater than your own. To regular readers of Cycle News, the FC 450-derived engine should be initial contact, two things stood out for me. As this was my first-time riding with a 16.5-inch front tire compared to the 17-incher I normally run, it was astound- ing how much quicker the Husqvarna would hunt for an apex. The rate of turn is incredibly quick, almost to the point of it being nervous. This is a real race bike and it feels it, too. That rate of turn, once you're used to it, allows you to brake so late, flick it in so hard, you're positive at some point you're going to lose the front of the FS 450—but you don't. And that brings me to the second point, the feeling of the Bridgestone supermoto slicks. I've been a die-hard convert of the Metzeler Racetec SM slicks lately. These things stick like poop to a blanket, and the Under brakes, the AER 48mm air fork is rock solid and allows you to point the bike almost wherever you like it.