On to the handling department and the Husky is a mixed up batch of characteristics that does nothing great and everything well. Blame could be directed at the fork. Its setup is a little on the stiff or sticky side, and we ended up running it pretty loose on the compression and rebound to make the bike plush. This made the bike feel too springy and made the turning a little vague, but was much better than having chop transmitted through the bar. The steering feels like it is out there (a lot of offset) but at the same time is light and planted. The WR feels like there is going to be plenty of stability, but at super-high speeds the bike can get nervous. When going really slow it can feel sluggish. Problematic fork seals liked to leak, until we had the fork rebuilt. The best trait was quite good bottoming resistance, even with low oil levels from the seal leaking. In the rear the Sachs shock does a fine job, especially when you get it set up; make sure you have a long screwdriver to get to the hard-to-reach rebound adjuster. We were running a bit more high-speed compression to help the turning and a little less low-speed compression to make the bike plush. If we could get the front to work as well as the back, the Husky would rival anything on the trail.
One sore point on our bike was braking. The rear, equipped with a solid rotor, lacked feel and progression and locked too easily. The front also felt soft and then bit hard and suddenly; this after a good bleeding and cleaning of the pads.
In today's market the level of refinement is so high that even the little things, like most of the issues raised with this bike, attracted some attention. Do they make it a bad bike? No, not at all. In fact, this Husky has a place where it really shines. Any time you are just riding. Not racing. Not going on a super-tough-guy ride. Just riding. Likely what most riders really do. That is where this bike rides right along and does it at a very acceptable level. If you're looking at a Husky, you most likely do not want to be another one of the crowd and want a unique ride. And often you can get one at a fair price as well, not to mention some of the discounts and sales promotions going on right now. Our experience with the bikes on a durability level has been good, fork seals notwithstanding, and the two-stroke is a time-proven design. So no, it is not a KTM or a Honda, but you didn't want it to be one of those in the first place.
So now you know. If you're a Husky owner looking for affirmation, you already know a lot of this stuff, likely have fixed it or dialed the bike to your liking and are completely happy (tell us how you did it at DRmail@sorc.com). Or you own something else and want to see where the Husky ranks according to what you know about your bike (we won't hear from you). But we are lucky that there are bikes of all different flavors-a theme of this issue, you might have noticed.
Trust us, if we always blew Husky two-stroke smoke all over the place to make everyone happy, we would not be riding bikes even as close to as good as this WR300. Competition is good and Husqvarna is hanging in there.