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What an epic unhinged rant.
LEAVE E-Bikes ALONE!!!!
I completely agree with this rant. Bike advancement has been severely hampered by the restrictive rules. I don't necessarily think electric bikes are the future, but they may be if ICE bikes don't have the opportunity to develop further.
moto "media" has a relationship with these guys due to their test ride....can they not send an email and ask for an update on status? I mean, there's more and more smoke around this...does this not seem like a great interview for someone to set up? Oh moto media...
There's a word that gets used in psychiatric circles regarding something like this, and the word is, "projection."
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All the talk about new tech in the battery bikes is a bit overstated.
Brushless induction motors, apparently in the proposed Stark, are over 50 years old and are analogous to 4 valve IC cylinder heads. Honda was actually selling, rather than quacking about, thousands of their excellent XL250 4 valver in 1973. Tesla, what would they know about EV, use them for lighter duty use in the rear. Many of the Tesla front motors which have to be high duty rated are conventional wound jobs. Winding the rotors with carbon fibre or sleeving them is not high tech, its a grim necessity to stop them exploding if they over speed.
The Li-ion batteries are pretty old too, they date back over 50 years with the first commercial units available from 1991. They only have about 1/10 the energy density of liquid fuels, like kero, diesel and petrol.
A funny irony to me is that the rechargeable batteries have an electrolyte made of lithium salts suspended in an extremely inflamable hydrocarbon liquid. Funny stuff and the big dirty secret of 'green' batteries. It is why they burn so well.
I just want to see one electric bike with a normal name that doesn't sound like it's the future of vacuums or something. Stark, Flux, Zero, etc.
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/how-e-bikes-exploding-killing-people
So basically a name/brand your familiar with?
Pit Bierer ruled out full size KTM E race bikes recently.
I think he probably spoke openly about what the big four are thinking.
No, just not some cheesy electricity or emissions related name. Can't wait for the Suzuki Spark, or the Kawasaki Killowatt!
Apparently the 80hp bike has a different motor, possibly higher speed, with a carbon fibre sleeve. (Fs, can you comment?)
So you can change your 80hp version to 60hp with only software, but not the other way.
Hopefully your questions are answered in the coming month
A friend of mine was always arguing with me, saying the Alta needed a clutch and trans. Then he rode one and said , " You were right ,You don't need a clutch or trans" . He got to ride the faster version of the 2 Altas. A friend of his got it from a dealer to race for the weekend. He raced it in the Open Pro class in NESC and finished around the same as he normally did on his gas bike. But he had to use it on the lower power setting towards the end of the motos. 20+2 laps that day. Charged in between motos.
I really don't see gas bikes ever totally going away. Dirtbikes have got to be super low on overall pollution levels. So few , and ridden for relatively low amounts of time too. 2 strokes, 3 wheelers , I'm sure there are other things that were going to be banned , that were not. I think electric has many advantages over gas. Even if you have to run a generator to recharge them. If you take away the fear of gas being banned , do you the haters still hate the electric power? The style of power that electric provides is amazing.
I was watching a power tool trade show video on Youtube and Cat has some graphene batteries that have 3 times the charge cycles, charge faster and have a higher power density. They have a sister company Kress , Kress claims that their batteries can be charged to 80% in 5 minutes and 100% in 8 minutes using a DC to DC charger. I spent a little time looking to see what they are using for the batteries and could not find any info on them. But there is also an all electric landscaper that has been using unmarked versions of earlier versions of those tools . Testing for them. And his were recharging in 15 minutes for the biggest battery. The mower and backpack blowers he has been using for years. He recently got the faster charging tools and made a video naming the tool brand. Kress. It seems like there is some great battery and charging tech that is right around the corner.
Maybe there is a slowdown caused by the higher numbers of bikes being made . And different regulations that apply after you start to make over a certain number of bikes? Maybe something like that , along with some other smaller supply chain issues, and or something they figured out that makes the bike better that they want to apply to the bike before producing them. It would be nice to know. They started out so much more transparent than other manufactures and kinda set a standard of communication . So now the lack of communication with media makes things look bad. I'm sure the big established brands have setbacks like this on new models. They just do not put info out there as early as Stark did. I hope that sometime soon I come to this thread and see somebody has finally gotten their Varg.
The difference between 60hp and 80hp "versions" is entirely firmware. The motors are exactly the same between each version. The carbon fiber sleeve is so the motor doesn't explode at 14000rpms.
Not according to a current technical magazine article, to which Stark contributed.
It also says 8000rpm max rpm on the motor.
If you're going to be a troll, at least try to be an interesting one. The listless tedium that lolls around in your cranium before mercifully finding an escape route through your fingertips - one can only hope, for your sake, that it ends up as boring as it starts out, rather than slowly becoming less so as it sloshes hither and fro in the thick, frothy, mist.
To be clear: that's not what he said, he said it just won't be soon. And if that is, indeed, what the others are thinking, it's likely because the uniformly rave reviews the Varg received from all those test riders has scared them shitless and sent their development teams off into the giggly bushes. Has anyone seen a pic of the prototype electric CRF lately? It used to pop up in spy photos all the time, now it's a ghost. Titan 1, you in particular, a man who possesses such unerring faith in the infallibility of the OEMs, might wonder why. Me, not so much. Occum's razor.
Wanna know what weirds me out the most? It's the relentless determination some of you rock throwers have (Magoofan, Titan 1, Goldmember, whoever, whoever, whatever, whatever) to persevere in your quest to somehow alter the path of the future by wagging your scolding fingers at anyone who's keeping an open mind to it. I mean, does that really seem like that is a strategy that could work? Has it EVER?
Somewhere in a suburban field this May, some 6 year-old kids are gonna gather together and start racing their electric KTMs and Huskys against each other. Two of them are gifted racers and will start a rivalry, and that rivalry will become so fierce it will propel both of them to future motocross stardom. What's my point? It's simple: with respect to the war you wish to rage against the future viability of electric motocross bikes, I'm not your true adversary, someone in their 30s is not your true adversary, someone in their 20s is not your true adversary, not even someone in their teens is your true adversary - no, those electric-bike-worshipping SIX YEAR OLD KIDS are your true adversary. They hold your fate in their hands, and there's not a chance in hell they'll see things your way. Bitch, moan, whine, whatever - they won't give two shits about your wistful thoughts of days gone by. You'll have as much luck with them as I'd have trying to talk Eli Tomac into embracing drum brakes, air-cooled engines, and twin-shock rear suspensions.
For anyone wondering about what Pit Beirer said:
https://www.vitalmx.com/forums/moto-related/ktms-pit-beirer-batteries-n…
I asked this exact question a while back and he answered that the motors/batteries were identical, I was wondering if the 80hp model tuned to 50hp would be more efficient than the 60hp model tuned to the same output. Nope, all firmware.
If they hit the market and are close to what they claim with battery life, I'll be ordering the 60hp model.
Pit Row
Current technical magazine article, which one post a link!
There is an ideological part to my disdain for battery buzzer E bikes.
It's as compelling as the technical arguments, but too political for this thread.
Despite your childish bloviating, the fact remains that there are no production Starks anywhere and following from that, for them to be claimed as the best MX bike ever is ludicrous.
I will just add that they also look like Chinese garbage. Looking forward to being proven wrong by the head turtleneck.
You grasping at straws saying they look Chinese.
My honest opinion is that they do. It's the plastics and the motor casing that throw me off.
I agree…they totally look like a knock off/generic version of a dirt bike to me too…
My guess is if the same bike was Honda red with CRF-E on the shroud or Orange with SX-E on it, you would not have the same opinion. Why can't another company create a quality bike that isn;'t the same as it's always been? You don't have to buy it or even like it. The hypocrisy is out of control when to comes to electric.
Here’s an interesting video looking at the battery pack of the Varg based on the footage Stark released of the battery manufacturing.
Might also be interesting for those who think the whole thing’s a scam. Would be quite the effort to stage the molds of the housing and the automated assembly of the pack.
Now that 17 pages have been chronicled, a working theory begins to develop ;
Perhaps an electric bike's lack of a foot-long silencer is bringing repressed daddy (or mommy ?) issues to the forefront for some & the natural reaction is to 1st feel threatened & subsequently resist, deny, criticize & argue.
Trauma experts agree that healing begins with recognition ; " show us on the doll where the bad man touched you "
Either way & kidding aside ; there sure seems to be a high level of emotional investment by grown adults in the success / failure / legitimacy of what is nothing more than just another motorized toy.
It's always interesting to see semi robotic manufacturing setups.
That video raises many more questions than it answers though.
For a start, if Stark have actually productionised their battery design why didn't they show big numbers of completed units?
They reported in their newsletter just a few weeks ago that they have passed the certification of the battery and go into mass production. So it seems the logical steps of: get the production process ready, get it certified and then produce the numbers.
Race Engine Technology, March 23 issue.
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