na come first from the vibration
and comfort. It has one of the
most uncomfortable seats in the
test with the most aggressive seat
cover material. It will wear you
out, so to speak, and is hungry
for an upgrade to a long-distance-
worthy saddle. As mentioned,
the Husqvarna doesn't vibrate as
much as the KTM, but that's not
giving it a lot of praise, as the KTM
is the rowdiest ride of the bunch.
The last stack of complaints
for the Husqvarna came at the
expense of all the bolt-on bits to
take it on the street. If you ride
this bike with the stock license
plate bracket on, it will break
off and leave your plate on the
trail. The blinkers flex on bumps
and get spit off by the rear tire.
The front turn signals are fine,
actually, but the light bulb in the
headlight is ready for a modern
upgrade, as well.
We actually had a switch as-
sembly glitch on our test bike that
progressively got worse. First,
our horn stopped working (which
is sad, because it's a lot of fun to
annoy your friends with a horn).
Then the turn signals stopped
reacting. The culprit was a loose
wire in a connector in the wiring
harness. Other than stuff falling
off of bikes (like turn signals) this
was the only glitch in our test.
The bottom line on the
Husqvarna FE 450: This bike
exhibits everything that modern
performance dual-sports should
be. It is light (only heavier than
the KTM), it is nimble, it has
triple-digit adventure range, it can
pull all-day duty on fire roads and
race-day stints on single-track
with exceptional performance
everywhere. Its only real weak-
nesses are an uncomfortable
seat and less-than-stellar turn
signals and plate bracket quality.
It vibrates more than the Honda
and Beta, but for most in our test,
the tradeoff is well worth the bet-
ter manners. This bike was very
close in rank to the KTM 500
EXC from our testers, with most
giving it a solid second place
based mostly on KTM's extra
CCs.
2019 DUAL-SPORT SHOOTOUT
COMPARISON
P88
2019 DUAL-SPORT SHOOTOUT
COMPARISON
The Husqvarna
just might be
the prettiest
dual-sport bike
on the trail.
