RUST magazine: Rust#4
RUST magazine: Two-stroke or four-stroke…? It’s the age-old debate that’s perplexed dirt riders the world over. So, armed with a KTM 250EXC and a Husky TE350, RUST decided to try and settle the argument once and for all. Find out what happened when they went head-to-head in a two-day French enduro. And if you’re looking for a compact Adventure Sport bike but don’t want to break the bank then this lightly modded Honda CB500X may be just the ticket.
RUST magazine: Two-stroke or four-stroke…? It’s the age-old debate that’s perplexed dirt riders the world over. So, armed with a KTM 250EXC and a Husky TE350, RUST decided to try and settle the argument once and for all. Find out what happened when they went head-to-head in a two-day French enduro. And if you’re looking for a compact Adventure Sport bike but don’t want to break the bank then this lightly modded Honda CB500X may be just the ticket.
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gearbox driven speedo, and while there were<br />
17in spoked wheels available they didn’t<br />
come with the cush drive that the Honda<br />
has - so that meant we had to develop our<br />
own. We tried a 21in front but it was too<br />
high, fouling the radiator, so we settled on<br />
a 19in as a good compromise.”<br />
In fact Mitchinson ended up with bespoke<br />
solutions front and rear. The hubs he designed<br />
himself using the KTM 690 rear hub<br />
as his starting point. And having first created<br />
these in CAD they’ve been milled from billet<br />
using his own £50,000 CNC machine. The<br />
hubs, which are finished with black anodising,<br />
take the standard axles, bearings and<br />
cush-drive. The heavy duty rims are laced to<br />
the hubs using 36 heavy-duty stainless steel<br />
spokes. Built to rally-spec they’ve got maximum<br />
strength and durability designed in.<br />
The suspension came next. Standard it’s<br />
very basic road-oriented stuff, which is in<br />
no way up to the job of off-roading. It’s also<br />
a bit short, leading to ground clearance<br />
issues. But suspension development is<br />
no easy task and it took Mitchinson and<br />
Morgan months of designing and testing<br />
different solutions before they settled on a<br />
specification. Long story short, they finished<br />
with a bespoke rear shock and linkage that<br />
offered 50mm more travel; and forks which<br />
were both valved and lengthened to gain<br />
30mm more travel up front. The suspension<br />
was a collaboration with Dutch suspension<br />
specialists Tractive who put both sets of
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