Back in 2021, Husqvarna teased the incoming Norden 901 with a series of videos featuring five-time Dakar winner Cyril Despres and explorer Mike Horn. These videos showed the pair testing the prototype 901’s mettle in Iceland. While Despres has tons of off-road experience, Horn has a bunch of exploration experience outside of bikes—so Husqvarna thought their skills would be an interesting complement out on its new adventure machine.
Now that it’s 2023 and the Norden 901 Expedition is the newest iteration of the platform, Husky decided to reunite Despres and Horn for the occasion. New bikes, after all, call for new adventures.So, where did the two go this time? To further test what the Norden 901 Expedition is made of, Despres and Horn went to experience the rugged, gorgeous terrain of Mongolia for themselves.
As Despres mentions in this video, with all his rally experience, he’s no stranger to sand. He’s no stranger to dunes. He’s also no stranger to snow. That said, snow-covered dunes, such as the ones they encountered in Mongolia, were a completely new thing in his world. It’s not clear exactly when the pair visited the country, but at its coldest, temperatures in Mongolia can get down to about –30 Celsius, which is about –22 Fahrenheit. (That’s ambient temperature, not even factoring in any windchill.)
This video showcases how both the riders and the bikes do on a variety of challenging terrain, including seemingly impossible-looking, nearly vertical sheep trails with lots of rocks. However, it’s almost as much about adventure logistics and problem-solving as it is about riding. For some adventurers, the areas they’re traveling through have many residents, plenty of whom are eager to offer their assistance and advice along the way. You may come to a river on your bike, but the locals usually have at least one way they normally get across it every day—and so, you do whatever the locals are doing to get yourself and your bike across.
While Mongolia has a number of nomadic peoples with strong love for family, animals, and the beautiful natural environment they live in, it’s a comparatively sparsely populated place. That’s why, in this video, you’ll see Despres and Horn gather wood, inner tubes, ropes, and other supplies to build a makeshift raft to get the bikes across a river they encounter. This, Despres says, is where Horn’s talents really shine through—and indeed, they seem like a well-matched pair of riders for an expedition like this.
