Last week I was finally able to take delivery of my Varg, and I have to say this thing is awesome! It's been pretty cool seeing a lot of excited customers finally receive their bikes over the last couple weeks, and it seems like the overwhelming consensus is that the wait was worth it. My first ride on it happened to be some woods riding since a few of my buddies received theirs as well, and we decided a group ride would be a lot of fun (I believe this may be a world record for a pack of Vargs outside of a Stark or dealership event, but I don't care enough to research and find out so I will happily remain blissfully ignorant if I'm wrong). I am planning to ride the bike at a motocross track this weekend, and will update this thread with a subsequent review video from that ride, but here are some initial thoughts from the trail:
A few things to note:
1. I have never in my life been paid for my orating ability. The delivery is borderline horrific and a certain percentage (probably high) of viewers may find my voice irritating. You've been warned.
2. We rode about 22 miles and only used a little less than half the battery. Under similar conditions as this, 40 miles on a single charge is definitely not out of the question. I feel like our conditions were pretty typical of west coast forest riding so this is probably a good baseline of range for most riders.
3. Power settings did not seem to effect battery range. I expect this would not carry over to motocross, but out on the trial we were all running different power settings at different skill levels and ended the ride within a couple percentage points of each other.
4. I ended up running the bike at 60-70HP all day. This sounds absurd for the trail, but in order to get the bottom end power I wanted to keep the front end light (I'm usually riding a two stroke so I'm used to a light front end and more initial hit) I had to bump the power up. I'm hopeful that in subsequent software updates we'll be given the ability to adjust torque as well as power to create a more customized power curve, but for now this was my solution. I didn't at any point feel like the bike was getting away from me due to how smooth it is.
5. The weight of this bike is more noticeable on the trail. I touch on this in the video but you really need to use proper form and rely on your legs to move the bike, not your arms, or you'll get tired out quickly in the tight terrain.
6. I need more time to make any kind of assessment on suspension. Trying to draw any conclusions from suspension that isn't even broken in yet would be very disingenuous and doesn't help anybody, but I really didn't have any complaints. Check your rebound before you ride the bike, mine was almost all the way in from the factory so I sped that up before even riding it.
7. No clutch and no shifting is awesome
8. Forest Grey Vargs in their natural environment really are a thing of beauty.
9. Yes I was the stupid motocross guy who didn't get a kickstand.
Sweet! Where did y’all ride at?
Man that thing looks like a blast on the flowy medium speed single track stuff. If you can squeak out 40 miles of singletrack on a battery that is more than enough I know when I do 40 mile days those are big days, pretty hard to do in the summer time especially.
Bike looks sweet with an 18" rear.
Love that dark gray color!
And whoever downvoted his post, get a life.
I thought white was the best color, but that gray looks sweet!!
I also feel there will eventually be more "tuning" on power delivery. I flew drones and they all have "adjustable" power curves for the inputs. Looks like this: Something similar on the Varg would be nice..
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How long did you get out of battery trail riding?
Come on man, show some compassion please, this is actually their mission in life, we're talking about guys that invested so much of their time bashing the Varg in the past couple of years, creating multiple accounts talking with each other, trying to convince the world that the Stark was just vaporware, that it would never enter production, that it was all a scam and only a handful of prototypes would ever be delivered to shills and influencers, that $100 preorders were funding demo bikes that the dealers paid for, that real people would never get their bike...
Understandably they need a little bit of time to adjust to reality. Hopefully they'll get the hang of it or it's gonna be physically painful for them the first time they'll see a Varg in the flesh, effortlessly zooming past them.
Enjoy your bike JM!
Woah, it can run for 40 miles in the woods! Truly amazing.
Well done. Good information for us trail guys. My only complaint? I wanted to see footage of you following the other Vargs.
"Trail riding" is a very broad phrase.
To me "Trail riding" is going as fast as you possibly can, everywhere, like you're racing a hare scramble or as we call them cross country.
Others might see it differently. Like a more casual approach to see the sights so to speak.
I don't care what you do as long as you are having fun, but it will most certainly make a difference in range.
I'm going to doubt that the Varg would do a cross country race just yet. I don't do that anymore, so 40mikes at a medium pace sounds pretty cool.
When Stark initially announced the Varg, they showed a power curve tunable to speed.
Looks like Georgetown....
That’s why I’m holding out on one. Until one does a 2 hour GNCC that’s when I’ll snag one. Although I did see someone at IXCR running a KTM Freeride this weekend.
Great post. That gray is by far my favorite. Looks amazing. Did you notice that coasting with engine braking, helped recharge the battery at all? I heard that comes into play and i'm sure it's more when trail riding, a lot more than on a mx track. I can see the weight being felt more on the trails. A lot of the mx reviews seem to not feel the weight much on track. Interesting running in such a high power mode. Your reasoning makes sense though.
Heard they got recalled. Dealer told me "electronic issue." I laughed. Any info on that?
Our races are an hour and a half or 2.
Somewhere around 50 miles. Dust, mud, sand, who knows.
Pinned, we aren't sight seeing.
That’s what I was thinking. Great riding!
I want one! But I’ll need way more than 40 miles…a trail ride for me is usually 60-80…
40 miles of range would cover probably 60%-70% of my riding though (that 30-40% is where I’m over 40 miles)…if I could justify two bikes, I’d own one now…but…I’m going to have to wait on range…
It was relatively dusty in a lot of parts so even if I wasn't leading we had to leave room between bikes, unless you enjoy breathing dust all day.
Pit Row
Nice!! That isn't an easy trail in Georgetown either!
You're not going to make a 2 hour hare scramble in more wide open terrain, that's just not going to happen now or any time soon with these bikes. A two hour race on the tighter trails we were riding may be possible, but these were all pretty low speed for the most part since they're so tight. Nobody is going down these trails pinned.
Yep, you guys got it. I hadn't been there is a long time, I usually ride Foresthill if I'm headed up into the woods, but it was a ton of fun.
I haven't heard anything about a recall, but I would imagine most issues that aren't hardware related can just be fixed with a simple software update.
Stark has been upfront about the range...
If you can't finish on a 450f, with a standard tank, and without refueling, you won't finish on a Stark without recharging or a battery change.
You mentioned dusty trail/?Did anyone clean an air filter? HaHa. When I ride my DIY electric Honda, that is one thing I do not miss from my ICE bikes. Enjoy
No way a stock 450 tank (about 1.5 gallons) goes 6 hours on a trail ride…unless that’s at a snail pace…
great video man, geeez, you speak like us mortals, and do a wonderful job translating what you feel.
That rocky section on trail 10 is kinda distinctive.
Pretty cool you took a toaster with you to rest your bike on 😋
Good to see them turning up and glad it was worth the wait for you dude 👍
Sounds pretty promising for the average rider. Of course you're not gonna ride desert all day and battery range will always be a consideration, especially if you're super fast or you are a guy who pounds laps/miles, but being realistic about ability and how much time a lot of us casual riders are actually riding, it doesn't sound bad.
The grey does look good too, from their recent social media it sounds like it's not been as popular as they expected which is pretty crazy.
GNCC should run a 1 hour e-moto race after the e-bike race on Friday. 2 classes e-moto over 200 lbs and e-moto lite under 200 lbs to run surron types. Get a feel for racing electric without effecting the real racing.
I posted a range test from YouTube in another thread. The guy said it would probably be good for about 35 miles and 2ish hours at trail pace. I would call trail pace 70-80% of race pace with more stops. 35 miles isn't a bad day in the east where you aren't riding alot of wide open fire roads. You will need to plan your route carefully and not get lost.
Congrats on the bike. Grey does look good.
Slightly off-topic but what's the green e-pit bike in the back of the group photo? Been looking at building one for my son with the MotoTec base and an Electro & Co. power upgrade.
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