RUST magazine: Rust#3

Enduro
tary smile under my helmet. By contrast, the
stock suspension settings especially on the front
felt unwieldy. I know the 4CS forks are meant to
be an upgrade from a standard open cartridge
fork but to me they didn’t feel like it at first. Once
I dialled them in to my liking though they worked
well, and I suspect that it’s just a matter of
spending time on the set-up to get comfortable
with them. Overall the Huskies felt top quality
and well made; the plastics were trick and solid
and the graphics get a thumbs-up from me.
The ergonomics felt good on all the models
especially on the FE350 which I felt was the best
all-rounder for all skill levels, the most forgiving
and exciting at the same time. If you prefer fourstrokes
then this would be the pick of the bunch.
But as far as my best bike’s concerned, it’s
not a four-stroke that tops this test, but in fact
the two-stroke 250 which was my clear winner
(followed by the 300). The 250 was a real eye
opener. As a long-standing campaigner of the
300 I fully expected to prefer the bigger capacity,
however based on my experience on this test I
would buy the 250 over the 300. It just felt good
in all conditions and inspired confidence.
It feels like a crosser when you need it, but the
gearing and power availability is what impressed
me most. The bike pulls strongly in every gear,
even low down where the 300 normally comes
up trumps and the 250 lags or has to be geared
down, but not this time. It had tons of low-end
grunt and at no point in the day did I run out of
top end either. The power delivery and ergos
made this bike feel significantly lighter than it is,