RUST Magazine: RUST #43

ENDURO
w
ANYTHING ELSE?
Yep. I love the new look. Not because
it looks sharp, snappy and bang up to
date. Although that’s a win. But because
the new look comes with a great set
of ergos. That seat-tank is so flat you
can move forward and back to your
heart’s content. The handlebars, the
controls, the levers – everything is the
right shape for 2020, no throwbacks, no
oddities. One thoroughly modern bike.
The brakes, they’re good too. Nissins,
front and rear, they’ve got good feel and
plenty of strength. Those gearboxes –
proper six-speed units, evenly spread
and with a decent near-overdrive top
gear for road work. Exactly right for
enduro and trail. Michelin tyres as
standard – far superior to the Maxxis
you’ll get with an orange machine.
Thank you Beta. And those big fuel
tanks? Well, props to Beta because
somehow they’ve managed to get
the 9.5 litres into a slim unobtrusive
tank that still leaves plenty of space
around the engine – so on the twostrokes
you can get to the spark plug
without removing the tank. We have
to love Beta’s real-world thinking, too:
when they designed those tanks, when
they removed the radiator hoses, they
were looking at cooling efficiency
of the radiators bearing in mind the
average speed for an enduro bike is
28km/h – these things have to work in
the woods, it’s nothing like road bike
design.
70
www.rustsports.com