VOL. 54 ISSUE 39 OCTOBER 3, 2017 P85
W
e wrote in our First Test
of the 2018 Husqvarna
TE250i online that car-
buretion, as we know it, is now
a thing of the two-stroke enduro
motorcycle past. Just as modern
four-stroke off-road bikes ad-
opted and refined fuel-injection
technology that was alive and
well on the street and in autos,
today's two-stroke dirt bikes have
reached the point where brass is
out and code is in.
This follows in the footsteps of
other players in the powersport
arena. Snowmobile manufactur-
ers have been injecting multi-
cylinder two-strokes since the
mid-90s and the marine industry
is heavy in the technology, as
well. In the motorcycle world,
trials bike manufacturers like
Ossa seem to be the first to get
dirty on two wheels while inject-
ing two-strokes, while Sherco's
founder recently said they have
the technology but prefer to al-
WE'VE JUST BEGUN A NEW CHAPTER IN THE GRAND
EVOLUTION OF TWO-STROKE DIRT BIKES AND
WE ALREADY LIKE WHAT WE'RE SEEING, ESPECIALLY
WHEN IT COMES TO THE NEW HUSKY TE250i
Riding the
Husqvarna TE250i
is a blast. Riding
it in 360-degrees
of panoramic
perfection really
boosts your mood.
low others to bring it to market
after their experiences releasing
four-stroke EFI before most.
Now, Austria has given the
full-size two-stroke dirt bike mar-
ket a real chance with EFI. With
the introduction of the Husqvar-
na TE250i, we've been given
our first real chance to test the
system's functionality, as we'd
ride it back on home turf.
After a somewhat epic road
trip across the American west,
we settled back to our routines
in Southern California. No, we
didn't battle traffic to get to the
good off-road riding areas in the
heat of summer. And after riding
epic terrain north of us, why
would we? But we did adjust the
power valve and gearing on the
bike a bit and took it to some
local off-road and motocross
zones to see how it reacted.
In reality, this is all we could
do. There are no tuning capa-
bilities on the injection system
available from Husqvarna at this
time. We can't plug in an EFI tool
(or use our phone—shout out to
Yamaha here) to adjust fuel
and ignition-timing settings.
HIGH FI!
BY JESSE ZIEGLER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SCOTT R. TOMLINSON,
STEPHEN CLARK, JESSE ZIEGLER
