2025-on Husqvarna Vitpilen 801 Review | Funky, feelgood roadster for sunny Sunday mornings

If you think you’ve seen the Husqvarna Vitpilen 801 before, you have…. sort of. It replaces the old single-cylinder Vitpilen 701 and is based heavily on the Svartpilen 801, which came out earlier this year. In fact, they’re almost identical. The Svartpilen (Swedish for black arrow) has a kind of street scrambler style with its knobbly tyres and high bars, while the Vitpilen (white arrow) is a pure roadster.

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It sits on street tyres, firmer suspension internals and lower bars. The most glaring difference its new round LED headlight, that’s pure sci-fi. There are also detail changes like the radiator cover, heel guard and front mudguard, a black end can and subframe and a yellow highlight in the rear seat. It comes in grey or sunglasses-bright yellow.

It’s every inch the consummate sports naked. It’s up there in the thrill charts with the likes of the Triumph Street Triple 765, Yamaha MT-09, Ducati Monster and Duke 790 from sister brand KTM. It’s fast, punchy, light, superb handling, well equipped, nicely finished and roomy, although the seat can be a pain after day’s ride. It has its own unique style, as well as the way it goes about its business.

Husqvarna have deliberately given the Vitpilen a calmer edge, to set it apart from the KTM. So, the power delivery is that bit softer and the steering calmer. Its sports touring tyres are great for gentler riding, too, but the chassis is crying out for much stickier, faster steering rubber. Front brakes need a big handful to scrub off speed, but other than that it does little wrong. It’s a funky feelgood roadster for sunny Sunday mornings.

The motor is housed in a 790 Duke-inspired tubular steel chassis with quality adjustable WP suspension that’s tight, accurate and full of feedback. It’s slightly slower steering than some of its rivals, but that’s its built-in character. A sporty naked like this with wide bars will always make light work of a B road, but the Husky needs more rider input than some.

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On the flip side the Vitpilen 801 is stable and as reassuring at full lean as it is in a straight line. It’s nice and roomy, too. Pegs are set low, but there’s still masses clearance and the bar position, which isn’t a million miles different to a 1390 Super Duke R’s are low enough to weight the front end without hurting your wrists. The seat, which is less padded than the Svartpilen 801’s, is comfy for four or five hours, before it starts to get painful.

Michelin Power 6 sports touring tyres are fitted to suit the Vitpilen 801’s calmer demeanour. They’re welcome on some the damp and slipperier parts of our ride during its world launch in the south of France, but the Husky’s chassis can more than handle something stickier and sportier steering. Unless you’re going to ride it like a sports tourer, or do big miles, which you probably won’t on a bike like this, changing tyres will let the Husky really shine.

Front brakes are a disappointment. KTM know how to produce stonking stopping power and feel, but the Vitpilen 801’s are lacking in both departments, although do the job with a lot of lever pressure.

Its motor is lifted from the 790 Duke and is a gem of a thing on the road, which makes it more of a shame that early engines had their well-publicised problems. They only affected some early bikes and it’s fair to say KTM have made a bit of a mess of dealing with the problems, but they’re sorting now, at last, with their ‘goodwill scheme’. Putting those issues to one side and concentrating on the motor we have here today, it’s still the parallel twin that wowed us when the 790 Duke broke cover back in 2018.

It booms like a V-twin at full throttle, has a smooth spread of easy-to-manage power and enough get up and go for cheeky wheelies off the throttle in second gear. Husqvarnas are design to be more laid back than their orange cousins.

The 801’s power delivery is mellower and less spikey than a 790 or 890 Duke’s and not as rowdy as the more powerful 990. It’s still potent, characterful and has a sublimely smooth gearbox. There are three standard riding modes that sharpen or soften the throttle response and a 10-stage cornering traction control system. An optional ‘Dynamic’ mode that lets you adjust wheelie and engine braking control is extra, as is its superb up/down quickshifter.

It’s too early to say how robust the Husqvarna Vitpilen 801 will be, but it shares a lot of its engine, chassis and electronics components from the 790 and 990 Dukes, so we can use KTM as a guide. The Austrian firm have, at long last, come up with a solution to camshaft problems on earlier models under their ‘goodwill scheme’ and engines in more recent bikes (from 2020-on) aren’t affected.

Aside from the odd small issue here and there, our online owners’ reviews don’t report any major problems with 890 or 990 Duke engines, electronics (apart from the odd sticky switchgear button), or chassis parts, which bodes well for the Vitpilen 801.

Costing just over 10 grand that Husqvarna Vitpilen 801 is a chunk more expensive than the two sports roadsters that share its engine: the CF Moto 800NK Sport (£5999) and KTM 790 Duke (£7999). It’s on par with the £10,095 Triumph Street Triple R and £10,106 Yamaha MT-09, but the more powerful KTM 990 Duke is more expensive (£12,999), as is the Ducati Monster (£11,585).

The Vitpilen 801 comes with plenty of goodies, like adjustable WP suspension and steering damper, radial brakes, a colour dash, LEDs, adjustable ali tapered bars, slip and assist clutch and lean-sensitive traction control and ABS with supermoto mode. But you’re going to have to pay extra for an up/down quickshifter, extra riding modes, adjustable rider aids and cruise control. There are a plethora of official accessories and clothing to choose from, too.