Upfront PLANET FAST BIKES – NEW METAL, NEWS & REVIEWS
It's been a bit difficult to know where to place Husqvarna's various recent roadster machinery. As you should all know, the classy Swedish brand is part of the same firm (Pierer) which owns KTM, GASGAS and WP Suspension. And its machinery shares the same fundamental powertrain and chassis foundations, so the Svartpilen and Vitpilen (‘black arrow’ and ‘white arrow’ in Swedish) bikes have used the engines and frames from the 125, 390 and 690 Duke models. The Svartpilen is a subtle retro-scrambler, and the Vitpilen is an unfaired café-racer, with both using the same unique design language that screams ‘IKEA’ to all right-thinking folk.
The current single-cylinder machines are all perfectly decent; there's usually a chassis upgrade, they get the peak power output from the KTM engines, and if you like the niche styling, the price premium is probably well worth it. But for many folk, just buying the KTM Duke will be the more obvious choice.
This might change things, though. It's the new Svartpilen 801, and as the Husqvarna naming rules dictate, that means the LC8c 790 Duke engine is a proper 799cc DOHC
