Enduro21 tackled the 2024 Erzbergrodeo, taking on the Iron Giant and the Hard Enduro World Championship round with our very own Husqvarna TE 250 test mule. Readers got in touch about our bike set-up…so here it is.

It’s a big deal getting your bike ready for a big event, right? What to fit, why you need it or whether you should bother. What protection parts, tyres, mousses, what gearing…it can be quite a list.

Erzberg is a savage event for all those reasons. Savage in terms of having the hardest rocks on planet earth – literally – but also savage because you need almost two different bikes for the prologue and the main race.

For us it meant a van full of stuff, some of which was because we wanted to check what other people were doing when we got there and some of it through paranoia and not wanting to get thousands of miles from home and find we needed something.

So here it is, warts and dinged exhausts and all, as it raced Erzberg but the truth is this is our tried and well-tested set-up for any hard enduro. 

It’s quite a list but this is what we fitted in no particular order:

• Enduro Engineering wrap around handguards
• Enduro Engineering radiator braces
• Apico brake and clutch hand levers
• Apico rear foot brake and cable
• Regina Chain
• Apico and JT sprockets
• Apico grab straps
• Polisport front disc guard
• Polisport fork bottom protectors
• Polisport swingarm protectors
• Polisport clutch cover protector
• TSP ECU reflash, medium compression head and injector relocation kit
• Kenda Gnarly tyres
• Bullet Proof Design rear brake disc and caliper protector
• Amped Graphics
• FunnelWeb air filter
• FMF 2.1 Power Core silencer and Factory Fatty expansion chamber (used, off a KTM)
• Astra Off Road Apollo handlebars 35mm
• Galfer brake discs and pads (wave front and solid, xmm rear)
• 1Gripper seat cover
• AXP Racing sump guard
• WP XPLOR PRO 6500 fork cartridge kit
• WP XPLOR Pro rear shock

Graphics kit

First up it’s a big up to Amped for the awesome graphics. Amped is a graphics and sticker company which has been around a while but kind of fizzled out as it changed hands. It’s back in business and this set came hot off the press to us just in time to leave for Austria.

Our Husky is not in bad condition but slapping on some new graphics for Erzberg brought it back into the ‘looks like new’ category, despite it being a 2019 TE250i.

Tyres and mousses

Part of the process and reason behind paying the entry fee for Erzberg was to test some parts and that included tyres. Kenda sent us some Knarly extreme tyres ages ago and we’ve been saving them for this sepcial occasion to properly test them. What a test huh?

Some of the main images show a rear Michelin medium tyre (also a medium mousse) because we shot the pictures before the prologue and that’s the rear tyres we ran for the fast stuff.

But for the main race we went to a 140 extreme (very soft) mousse and the Knarly rear for the grip. Our preference is to not have the soft, drilled 120 mousses like you see so many riders.

We prefer not to have it so soft it looks like a trials tyre and, honestly, never had grip problems except on the ice-like rocks in the trees where everyone struggles. 

Kenda’s Gnarly did the job and though it took a beating from the iron rocks, it had bags of grip for those long, loose climbs which catch so many riders out.

TSP relocation kit, reflashed ECU and medium comp kit

If there’s something fitted to this bike which stands out as transforming the stock Husky then it is the Two Stroke Performance (TSP) parts fitted. We’ve written it before but it truly is the investment which turns a TPI into the bike it should be.

Our bike was a good one when we bought it with no problems but opting for the TSP ECU reflash, injector relocation kit and medium head turned it into a pin-sharp tool for enduro.

The only minor negative with the TSP kit is a tendency to hang on to the revs a little if you blip the throttle in neutral. When you sit at the start or the van and rev the engine, the revs carry on, kind of hanging and don’t die down as quickly as they should. It’s no issue really and doesn’t happen otherwise at all.

Overall the throttle response is precise in this high-altitude race and the fuelling was flawless. Even as we rolled back down the mountain after the four-hours of struggle had ticked by, trying to soak in the final moments of a crazy week, the bike felt sweet as a nut and ready to start again.

Speaking of fuelling and to answer a few questions about the Erzberg main race, from a tank full at the start we had more than half left after the race with no fill-ups…

One filter all week

Quick shout out also for the FunnelWeb air filter. We took three – one for each prologue run and the main race. In fact we need just one, despite some horrendous weather in the first prologue.

We changed it for the main race but honestly it didn’t really need it. 

Added to the above praise for the TSP kit is the suspension upgrade. These two things are the most significant investments we made in terms of performance upgrade to the stock TPI.

The suspension lets you tackle anything without fear of kick-back or fear of bottoming out. Fast prologue or trials section in the main race, our bike feels on-point.

Gearing: going long and short

It was a gamble based on the thinking that we needed to go as long as possible for the prologue but as short as possible for the main race. But it paid off. The prologue’s high-speed nature meant we went as long as we could. That was 14 front and 47 rear gearing which made the bike a rocket!

The main race is the opposite, we ran 12-52 for all the low gear riding. But even so we think it was still too tall in first gear and a bigger cog (if it’s actually possible) on the back would have been better. Both times we opted for steel tooth rears for durability.

All levers were from Apico’s range and like-for-like replacements. We like the slight change in ratio of the hand levers from the stock Maguras levers which give a little more feel for the brake and clutch.

Foot brake and gear levers are also Apico parts – again, these are like-for-like replacements for standard with the added bonus of the rear brake having a stay cable for added security.

We did a quick bleed up of the brakes before we left with some new fluid in the front and with the Galfer wave disc on the front and solid rear the bike was fully sorted on the downhills. Genuinely there were places we were easily more confident than riders around us and (if it hadn’t been one line so often) could have made more overtakes on the brakes.

Handguards switcheroo

Our Amped graphics kit was cut for the standard handguards so we fitted it and went with them for the prologue. But the main race can be a tough one on levers so we opted to fit wraparound handguards from Enduro Engineering.

Some riders like to throw their bike around, ghosts it up the top of hills or obstacles btu that’s not a b it of us and it can be risky.

Like a fail-safe option for protecting the hand levers, the EE wrap-around guards are tried and tested in these tough conditions and we recommend them. They’re solid mounting system meant they stayed in place (some other types have a bad habit of coming loose once they hit the deck once or twice).

We also opted for a new set of Enduro Engineering radiator braces. You need maximum air flow for all the hours spent in the trees at Erzberg so this set look good from the front. What you can’t see behind the plastics is the amount of aluminium bracing the sides and back of the rads. We had no doubt the radiators were well protected.

Protection parts

Front disc protector and fork bottom protectors are light plastic type and easy to fit. Many riders go with more strong parts to defeat the rocks but we find these are good enough at a race where you are riding slow through most the sketchy stuff.

The latest addition to the Polisport catalogue are the wrap-around fork guards which felt like a genuis idea as we flew through the prologue runs. The rocks flying up, especially when we caught a few other riders and had to follow the roost. 

Swingarm guards can be a no-no for some people but this race more than proves why you should fit them. The dings in the plastic show you exactly how many time the swingarm would now have a scuff or worse but it was saved completely by this simple protector which you cable tie on.

Same goes for the Enduro Engineering rear disc guard which is proved its weight in gold protecting the Galfer rear disc. 

AXP Racing’s sumpguard with linkage protector extension is as good as it gets for protecting the underside of your bike. The lightweight construction is tough enough for this event, both the hard rocks in the main race but also the thousands thrown up by the front wheel in the prologue. It genuinely cane be a very damaging thing to run the Iron Road prologue.

Same too for the rear chain guide and sprocket protector. It’s a part we’ve tested and reviewed before, like the sump guard, and the solid block stood the test of an Austria mountain.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Last of all a quick check on the riding position. It’s important for Erzberg because you need to be happy and comfortable with more time seated than normal and with feet on the floor.

You will never know how much faffing went on to get the seat right by trimming down the seat foam with a sharp blade. It was a bit of a process to be honest: trim, try it, trim again about half a dozen times in the end but it worked and the grippy, as the name suggests, seat cover from 1Gripper was stapled back on.

But we got there in the end, dropping it down to be comfortably flat footed (with more sag also) plus adding the Apico grab strap.

Adding to the nice riding position was the 5mm lower and further back footpegs. We had a set of like-for-like Apico footpegs for the prologue but opted back to a set of Raptor Titanium for the main race, not because there was anything wrong with the Apico parts but wanted to get that lower position.

Last of all here is the Astra handlebars, ours are the Osiris 35mm bend. Astra’s bar shape philosophy is all about rider posture on the bike, particularly while standing where control can be radically affected by your body position.

This set is significantly lower than the standard ProTaper set which are too tall. Seated or standing, the Osiris bars feel the most comfortable of their range on this bike.

All else is standard except the FMF 2.1 Power Core silencer and Factory Fatty expansion chamber which are used, off a KTM test bike we had about five years ago.

It was a straight bolt-on replacement for the stock Husky parts and is lighter, brings more power and if you’re into the Jarvis-style battered exhaust fashion, looks just perfect the more you use it!

Anyway, we made it as far as we made it, finishing more or less where we started and with a bike (and rider it must be said!) ready to do it all again thanks to the prep work. 

You can see how it looked onboard in our video: The Real Erzberg – Enduro21 takes on the Iron Giant

Photo Credit: Future7Media | Andrea Belluschi + Enduro21