Kiwi Rider October 2023 Vol.2 | Page 53

SECOND OPINION

When I first laid eyes on the pre-production concept Norden back in 2019 my first thought was that it looked great and ticked many boxes adventure riders are looking for , but I did wonder how much Husqvarna would eventually revise it for production . It ’ s not uncommon for great concepts to finally appear as production machines in a watered down state , if they ever appear at all . Thankfully , Husqvarna stuck to the original adventure travel idea and it wasn ’ t changed much at all . That was a few years ago , and the Expedition version has been launched , which looks even better . The metallic blue paint is oh-so-deep , with contrasting white with touches of fluoro yellow ... it looks gorgeous in the metal . I like it . The Norden ’ s looks have proven to be polarising though , with the big , round retro style headlight ( with very modern LED internals ) coming in for a lot of comment . It ’ s a Marmite thing - people love it or hate it , there doesn ’ t seem to be anyone in the middle . The rest of the bike exudes a sort of solidshouldered , strong yet athletic vibe , particularly from the front three-quarter viewing angle , which gives it a visual sense of purpose that is sadly lacking in many other machines in the same market space . At the heart of the Norden is a wonderful , almost 900cc , parallel twin that punches out a broad , real world useable spread of power that is deceptive in its delivery . What I mean by this is that the rider doesn ’ t get any particularly visceral rush of power or feeling of extra torque anywhere in the engine ’ s rev range , rather it ’ s a well developed torque curve that just gets on with the job of propelling you to well into licence losing velocity . A glance at the bright and clear TFT screen often gave me a surprise , I just wasn ’ t expecting

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