HARD Kits Husky 710 – Phwoar! - AdventureRiderMagazine

This entry is part 10 of 16 in the series Adventure Rider Issue #19

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What happens when HARD Kits takes a bike as good as the Husky 701 Enduro and specs it up to rallye standards? Adventure-riding magic happens.

It’s not easy to take a great bike, bolt things to it, and end up with an even better bike. HARD Kits has managed it. The Gold Coast-based company came up with a kit for KTM’s 690 which we rode in issue #03 and loved. Basically, the HARD Kit gave the standard 690 a rallye-style fit out with a nav tower and bigger fuel capacity. It was an excellent set of mods with some beautiful fabrication. Refinement continued and the company released the Series Two HARD Kit for the 690 – which we rode in issue #09 – and now, there’s a Series Three. The concept is the same – taking the base bike anyone can buy and offering a substantial upgrade in kit form – but HARD Kits is offering its latest rallye set up for Husky’s new 701 Enduro as well as the KTM690. It’s a world first for a Husqvarna kit with additional fuel capacity.

The Series One and Series Two kits were good, but the Series Three is a considerable step forward, and on the Husky 701 it creates a bike that’ll have wanna-be rallye and hardcore adventure riders frothing.

The Husky 710.

The bike is slim and compact, and it handles technical terrain with ease. It’s just as at home at high speed on open road.

Appearances

Just to remind you of our opinion of the stock Husqvarna 701 Enduro, we thought it was a great bike. We said,‘…there’s no problem about loving that motor and the bike’s general performance, on- or off-road.

Fitting luggage and a screen would no doubt make the Husky a distance hound, and we’re guessing there’ll be long range tanks available very shortly. With those accessories fitted, this bike will be one scorching hot time waiting to be enjoyed.

That’s almost what HARD Kits is offering.

The two obvious additions are the 18 litres of fuel capacity in the Nomad tanks fitted to the front of the bike and the screen/fairing and nav tower in front of the ’bars. There’s actually a lot more than that going on, but because of the clean, compact look of the bike, it takes a closer scrute to see some of the excellent additions and mods.

The HARD Kits 710 Husqvarna is a sensational package. The stock bike is one of our favourites, and the Series Three HARD Kit makes it even better.

The kit

The new set-up now has a handful of genuine, OEM 450 Rallye components added, mostly to the front of the bike.

The use of readily available OEM parts is preferable to unique fabricated parts, we reckon. It means those components are far less expensive and are much easier to replace.

Starting from the front, KTM-brand clear, polycarbonate screen, headlight support tray and headlight protector bolt on to a custom-built HARD Kits nav tower.

Whopping footpegs. We thought they were going to be too big, but when we rode the bike they were spot on.

The smaller dash and clear screen make for a very uncluttered and unobtrusive cockpit, but everything needed for a rallye set up is there. The carbon-fibre dash is designed to take a Garmin LM GPS or an iPad mini.

The three-millimetre, aluminium side-plates of the Series Two tower have been upgraded to three-millimetre carbon-fibre units. There’s a slight weight reduction with the carbon-fibre, and the clear screen gives much-improved vision at the front, and the carbon fibre looks horn.

The new floating dash is narrower and simpler than the Series Two version is designed to take a Garmin LM series GPS or iPad mini in the portrait position.

Nomad Tanks fuel cells have also been redesigned to accommodate the shape of the Husky. The HARD Kits tanks now hold 300ml less than the KTM version, but the Husky on-board tank holds a litre more than the KTM, so overall it’s still an increase in capacity to just over 30 litres. The tank-protector guard on the lower section of the Nomad tank is now plastic instead of carbon fibre, with the plastic being more crash-resistant and less expensive. So that’s a double winner.

To accommodate the extra fuel, the stock pipe is changed to a HARD Kits down pipe and it’s around 110mm shorter than the Series Two header. It moves the Wings muffler in tighter with the bike and keeps it a little more protected.

Mechanicals – engine, gearbox, final drive and so forth – are all standard.

The same nice, snag-free lines we’ve seen on previous HARD Kits. The Nomad Tanks are a really nice build.

Owner’s privilege

The bike we rode here is the HARD Kits demo bike, and it has a few options which will be available to purchasers but which won’t be included in the standard kit price.

Things like Öhlins suspension internals for the forks, Öhlins shock, a pair of super-trick Highway Dirt Bike handguards with little fold-in mirrors, and some whopping HARD Kits footpegs. A New Zealand-based company is doing some fabrication for HARD Kits.

The seat has to be modified to suit the new tanks, and at the time we rode the bike it wasn’t certain whether the kit would contain instructions for the owner to do the mod, a seat would be supplied, or perhaps HARD Kits would do the seat mod with each order. You’ll have to research that one for yourselves.

The ’bars on the demo bike sit nice and high over an underbar steering damper with vibration-suppressing mounts.

The demo bike also had some CNC-machined trimmings in the HARD Kits billet fuel-cap mounts and some cosmetic trimmings here and there.

A shorter downpipe keeps the muffler in tight with the bike.

Done right

The first question any potential buyer will probably ask is, “How’s the balance?” The extra tanks and turret give the bike a front-heavy look, but as we found with the first two versions of the HARD Kits, balance is something that’s well-sorted. We rode the bike with probably half its possible fuel load and couldn’t feel any penalty in weight bias at all. It was the same slim, sure-footed, dirt-bike feeling mount we enjoyed in the stocker. Naturally the motor and mechanicals felt great – they were stock after all – although maybe the engine was breathing just a little better. We might’ve imagined that, but we admit we were in a fair state of ecstasy as we rode the bike and were ready to believe just about anything.

That sums up the HARD Kits Husky 710 for us. Everything we loved so much about the standard bike was still there – great motor, great handling, superb build and feel – but we had serious fuel range, excellent protection from the wind and elements, the bike was more comfortable than standard, and, a major step up from previous HARD Kits in our opinion, fabulous visibility thanks to that clear screen. The rider can see the terrain right in front of his wheel and that gives a very big boost of confidence.

The suspension on this demo bike was excellent, even without any adjustment, the handling matched the suspension, and the power delivery and sound rounded out a really fantastic package.

We’re seriously in awe of how good this bike is. We want one.

Darren ‘Big Dog’ Wilson, the main man at HARD Kits. There’s a Series Three kit available for the KTM 690 as well. The 660 Rallye is Darren’s own ex-Andy Caldecott Safari bike.

Who do you call

So how do we – or you – get a HARD Kit?

Cross Roads Motorcycles in Grafton is now the national distributor, and Lee Palmer, who Adventure Rider Magazine readers have met already, is the man to talk to. Give him a call on (02) 6643 1933 and have a chat about the Husqvarna options and costs.

See the Series Three kits at the Melbourne Moto Expo

HARD Kits will officially launch the new Series 3 kits at the Melbourne Moto Expo. Lob along and ask the guys for any information you need, get a good,close-up look at the gear, and maybe even have a chat to The Big Dog himself. Head out to Melbourne Showgrounds between November 25 and 27 to take in all the action.

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