Husqvarna 701 Enduro

Ride this thing flat-out on a dirt road and you'll understand why people forgive its sins — that LC4 single thumps with a personality no parallel twin can fake, and at 148 kg wet it goes exactly where you point it. The WP suspension is genuinely capable once you've dialled the clickers for your weight, though the factory setup feels wooden for anything under 85 kg. I put 14,000 km on mine across Spain and Morocco, and the vibration above 130 km/h is real enough to blur your mirrors and numb your hands on long tarmac stretches. The early fuel mapping on these Gen 1 bikes is lumpy below 3,500 rpm until you flash the ECU, and the stock exhaust header has a well-documented cracking issue that Husqvarna quietly acknowledged but never fully recalled.

After 18 months and roughly 14,000 km split between tarmac commutes and weekend trail riding, the 701 Enduro still surprises me with how competently it does both jobs. That LC4 single is a brutal, characterful thing — it thumps and vibrates at low city speeds, but crack the throttle above 5,000 rpm and the surge is genuinely shocking for a 148 kg bike. The Gen 2 fuel tank update is legitimately meaningful; the 13-litre capacity finally gives you real range without planning pit stops around every petrol station, and the revised ergonomics suit taller riders better than the previous generation. The weak spots are real though: the stock WP suspension is plush and capable in the dirt but wallows noticeably when you start leaning on it hard on tarmac, and the seat becomes instrument-of-torture material somewhere around the two-hour mark.

After 8,000 km across gravel fireroads, mountain passes, and daily commutes, the 701 Enduro remains the most honest bike in my garage — it does exactly what it promises and nothing it doesn't. The LC4 engine is a living, breathing thing: it vibrates, it pulls hard from 3,500 rpm, and that torque hit at 6,500 rpm still catches you off guard on loose ground. The updated WP XPLOR suspension is genuinely better than the previous gen — more composed on fast gravel and less deflective over square-edged rocks — but it still needs a proper setup session before it respects you. My real complaints are the seat, which is still too hard for anything past three hours, and the fuel range of roughly 250 km before you're doing anxious maths in the middle of nowhere.