The rear brake caliper can crack mid-ride on 21,040 recalled dirt bikes

KTM North America is recalling about 21,040 GASGAS and Husqvarna off-road motorcycles in the United States after the rear brake caliper on certain 2021 through 2024 models was found to crack or break mid-ride, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The recall covers bikes originally sold for between $7,300 and $13,000 at authorized GASGAS and Husqvarna dealers, and the agency says the defect can cut braking effectiveness enough to cause a crash.

KTM North America Traces the Defect to the Rear Caliper

KTM North America Inc., based in Amherst, Ohio, filed the recall with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which made it public on Thursday, August 20, 2026. The commission described the defect in blunt terms in its notice: “The rear brake caliper can crack or break, reducing the brake system’s effectiveness, posing a risk of serious injury or death due to crash hazard.” KTM North America distributes both the GASGAS and Husqvarna off-road lines in the United States; the two brands are separately badged but built under the same corporate parent, KTM AG, which also shares frames and drivetrain components across comparable models from each brand.

That shared-parts structure is part of why a single caliper defect can span two brand names at once rather than staying confined to one manufacturer’s lineup. Husqvarna Motorcycles, an Austrian company with roots in Swedish manufacturing dating back more than a century, and GasGas, a Spanish enduro brand KTM fully absorbed in 2020, both draw on the same supplier network for components like rear brake calipers. KTM AG itself is majority owned through a holding structure that includes India’s Bajaj Auto, a detail that matters here only because it explains why a defect filed under the KTM North America name covers two other brand badges as well.

Which Models Are Affected, and How to Tell Them Apart

The recall covers certain 2021 through 2024 GASGAS and Husqvarna off-road motorcycle models. The two brands are easy to tell apart on sight: GASGAS bikes are red with a white GASGAS logo on both sides of the shrouds, while Husqvarna’s off-road models are white, blue and yellow with the Husqvarna name in the same position. Both were sold exclusively through authorized GASGAS and Husqvarna dealers rather than general powersports retailers or big-box stores, which narrows the channels through which an owner could have bought one without any knowledge of the recall.

The affected motorcycles were sold new from September 2020 to June 2023. That nearly three-year window means a meaningful share of the recalled bikes have likely already changed hands at least once on the used market, where a private-party buyer has no built-in way to learn about the defect unless they check the specific model and year against the CPSC notice directly.

21,040 in the United States, Another 4,140 in Canada

The Consumer Product Safety Commission put the confirmed U.S. count at about 21,040 units. Canada’s counterpart regulator recorded another 4,140 of the same motorcycles sold north of the border, pushing the North American total past 25,000 bikes built with the same rear-caliper defect. The recall notice does not separate recreational trail bikes from those bought for organized off-road competition, so the count spans both uses equally, and it does not break the total down by individual model or trim level either.

Twenty-one thousand is a large number for a niche category. Off-road motorcycles are a smaller slice of the powersports market than street bikes or ATVs, so a defect touching 21,040 units in one filing represents a meaningfully large share of everything GASGAS and Husqvarna sold in the United States across those model years combined, not a narrow slice of a single production run. The dual count — one figure for the United States, a second for Canada — is also a reminder that the two countries run separate recall systems even for products built by the same manufacturer and sold through the same dealer network, which is part of why the U.S. and Canadian unit totals were announced as two distinct numbers rather than one combined figure.

The Free Repair, and Why No Injuries Have Been Reported Yet

The commission is telling owners to stop riding the recalled motorcycles immediately and to contact an authorized GASGAS or Husqvarna dealer to schedule a free repair, rather than attempting to inspect or swap the caliper on their own. As of the announcement, no injuries had been reported in connection with the defect — a detail that places this recall among the cases regulators consider caught early, identified and addressed before it produced the crash outcome the notice itself warns about.

What the notice does not say is how KTM North America first identified the crack risk — through warranty claims, routine dealer inspections, or a supplier’s own quality check — and it gives no figure for how many of the roughly 25,000 affected bikes across both countries have already had the part replaced. Until that number surfaces, the agency’s guidance stays the same for anyone holding a 2021 through 2024 GASGAS or Husqvarna off-road model: park it until a dealer has swapped the caliper.

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This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.