I’m packing the gear bag and leaving tonight (no, not on a jet plane, but the song is still lodged in my brain) for a press launch in Olympia, Washington. I’m more excited about this media intro than most and for lots of reasons. The first is that these are enduro bikes which are more my style. Second, they’re the most interesting enduros available in my mind being the 2010 Husaberg models which we’ve been previewing in the 2010 Husaberg Off-Road Lineup First Look and 2010 Husaberg FE 390, FX 450, FS 570 video. Third, it’s at Straddleline ORV Park at one of my favorite racing events. And fourth I’ve been absolutely dying to try out a 400cc model since KTM brought it back last year. The Berg 390 has me in a fever.

We had our trusted SoCal desert rat, Chilly White (check out his ISDE Blog), hammer down on the 2009 FE 450 which turned out to be one of the most exciting and awesome bikes of the year. I got to ride a buddy’s for about 10 miles over the summer, but never really saw any serious seat time. Now I’m going to get a chance to really explore these machines. Aside from the Husabergs, KTM is bringing out some of its XC machines. We’re looking forward to the all-new 2-stroke 150 XC which will be a ton of fun. They also have the 250 XC and 300 XC machines plus the 450 XC-W and 530 XC-W Six Days models to give us the 4-stroke kick.

We have to test these things in a race environment which is new to me and will be interesting. Not quite sure how that is going to work out for photos and video, but we’ve got our best media guy tagging along so it’ll be a learning experience for us both.