VOL. 55 ISSUE 43 OCTOBER 30, 2018 P83
IT'S HARD NOT TO LOOK AT THE
2019 HUSQVARNA FS 450 AND NOT
BE AS EXCITED AS YOU THE TIME
YOU GOT YOUR FIRST BIKE
WHEELIES
& SKIDS
W
hat has two wheels, a blue frame, a
single-cylinder engine, traction and
launch control and gives you the
kind of fun levels some countries will arrest
you for?
If you answered Husqvarna's FC 450,
you'd be partly right. The company whose
tag line is "We Invented Motocross" does
indeed have one hell of a moto steed—it is
the current Monster Energy AMA Supercross
Champion, after all—but the bike on test here
is a morph of that triple jumping monster.
This is the Husqvarna FS 450. The guys
who invented motocross also invented their
own factory-built supermoto, a motorcycle
that's so much damn fun you'll wonder why it
ever took you so long to join the people who
know and take up supermoto.
We are massive fans of supermoto here
at Cycle News. In the time I have been
Road Test Editor at CN, we've built three of
them—granted, all Suzuki RM-Z450s—but
the FS450 is different. Whereas I cobbled
together a bunch of parts on what was still a
motocross-bike-gone-tarmac in terms of sus-
pension, the FS 450 has been thought of as
a supermoto from the get-go, created at the
factory with all the expertise that goes with it.
Husqvarna is one of the few manufacturers
that creates a dedicated supermoto machine
for sale here in the U.S. None of the Japa-
nese do and only a couple, like the Italians at
TM, do from Europe. Aprilia used to be part
of this realm with their bonkers twin-cylinder
SXV450/550, but that's long confined to the
history books. So, if you're in the market for a
