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Lap time comparison would be sweet👍
Good review by Nick. The 80 HP with no shifting or no clutch will get people hurt, and I'm glad Nick expressed that concern. Now if a beginner get's whiskey throttle they are limited by what gear they're in, likely 1st-3rd. With Stark they could be in 80HP mode and get whiskey throttle off huge triple and hit it at 90MPH. Was it Renner that crashed at Mini Os on Alta that way? Or offroading into a tree/canyon. Hope people think before they get on if they're not too experienced.
and don’t forget that EVs can catch fire at any moment!
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It was Ronnie that had an accident on the Alta.
Crash
I like Nicky Wey's take. I 100% agree. I don't trust the electronics will "never have a glitch". If that thing gets stuck wide open, you're going to get seriously hurt or worse. The motocross sanctioning bodies should require every bike to have a dead-man switch or a physical clutch with a lever to disengage the engine from the drive sprocket. For safety purposes. I think it should have a clutch on it anyways for a better feel. Its a very simple concept to add to the bike.
I do think a tether style kill switch would be good for them. The other thing about the Varg is that You can turn the power down . And beginners and people more likely to have whisky throttle can set the power at a low level.
Many vehicles are already controlling the fuel delivery via electronics with no physical cable. I think pretty much ALL new cars and trucks are drive by wire. My SXS is, and most newer are. If You drive a pickup truck newer than 2003 or a GM diesel newer than 1994 You do not have a throttle cable. The gas pedals are potentiometers a kinda like the old trigger for a slotcar. It sends an electronic signal that delivers fuel via more electronics.
Top speed limiter and ride mode lock would be useful features on electric bikes.
I know about the electronic throttles on cars. But those are multi-billion dollar companies with millions of vehicles sold and millions of dollars in R&D on that part alone. A little MX company probably isn't going to have anywhere near that same experience, knowledge, or quality of parts. I say just put kevlar clutch systems in them and either use it or don't. At least the option to save yourself from a wide open disaster by pulling in the clutch would be available.
The company that makes the throttle for Stark shows as having made $1.1B last year . They make electrical connectors, sensors, etc. The Stark website has them as Kischmann HIRSCHMANN AUTOMOTIVE.
The same throttle is used by KTM on their freeride, Apriolla and BMW also use them.
I'm going to guess that Stark also had an established manufacturer build their controller's. They may be more proprietary.
I get it that You just do not like the bikes.
An electronic clutch or decelerator lever like a Bulldozer has ( Dozers and some other equipment have a reverse gas pedal and hand throttle. You set the throttle level by hand and then back off as needed with the decell pedal. You run wide open or at the set RPM the rest of the time).
A physical clutch would just rob power and make the bike less efficient and reduce runtime. I do think that it could be a legit thing to worry about. A friend of mine had his CRF450 throttle stick wide open and he ended up over jumping a jump by 100 feet ,landing flat. He was knocked out for close to 2 minutes. Somehow he only broke his jaw and had to have a bunch of root canals to save his teeth. He was wearing Invisalign braces at the time.
The left hand rear brake is in the same position as a traditional clutch, squeeze that and it will have a similar effect.
80 HP and "instant torque" and you think you can squeeze that lever hard enough to stop the wheel?
To be fair, the Hirschmann throttles are junk. They work, but the feel isn't great and overall they're just a very cheap build quality, however that said there isn't a lot of great quality options out there and it's the same throttle Alta used. Interestingly enough the stock Surron throttle is probably the best I've found so far, it's very smooth and has a light pull.
I expect Stark to come out with their own throttle developed in house in the not so distant future, this is the one part of the bike that is glaringly lacking quality, which becomes more evident since the rest of the bike is built to such a high standard.
Try jumping on your rear brake, while you have your 450f's throttle wide open.
You could probably use a surron throttle on the Varg. The Hirshman Throttle is marketed as an upgrade for the surron too. And they just put different plugs on it if you order for a Sur-ron. The review I saw for the Hirshman on a Sur-ron said that it worked better . Said Lots of smoother, not so rough, no more empty space, constant driving is now much easier.
I do not have any personal experience with one as far as I know. So I trust Your opinion on it. Maybe the twist motion itself feels smoother and easier on the Sur-ron , but it transmits the power smoother? Or that other review was BS. I don't know. All of the electric throttle's I've seen do not have the look and feel I would expect on an MX bike.
I was surprised that it was an off the shelf item. And they spent time on other areas that could have also used off the shelf stuff. With the throttle being such an important piece on an electric bike. But I guess if it works well and is reliable, its a good base. And leaves room for aftermarket stuff. Maybe PC and FMF will make throttles in the future? Lighter pull, heavier pull, quicker to full throttle, adjustable, etc.
The Hirschmann is 100% a downgrade from the stock Surron throttle as far as I'm concerned, I've used both quite a bit. People are influenced by the pricepoint of the throttles and immediately assume that because the Hirschmann is more expensive it must be better, which I have not found to be the case. The Surron has a lighter pull, so some people may be mistaking their jerky throttle hand for an erratic throttle. The Surron also has a die-cast housing vs the plastic injection molded housing of the Hirschmann.
I'll put it this way, I had the option to run whatever throttle I wanted on my EMX pitbike and after trying them I chose the Surron over everything else, including the Domino.
I did not look at the prices. But I see that happen often with a lot of stuff. These days you do not always get a better product when You spend more money. You have a Varg right? Would You try swapping a Surron throttle onto it? I know the Varg's throttle can work on the Surron, I am guessing its all pretty low voltage at that point so other than changing the connectors over it should bolt on right? Some plastics can be stronger than cast aluminium too . It would be interesting to see how each lasts long term. I know a couple people who have had or own Alta's and one of them is super hard on stuff and his is still alive and well. And I lost track of how many customers have Surron's . None of them have said they have had any issues. I hope I do not sound like I am arguing with you I'm interested in everybody's opinion's .
My earlier post about the throttle was to show that it was an established company making and selling them. And I would expect it to be on the same level or higher than the drive by wire gas pedals in most vehicles on the roads. Not that a lot of the cars on the road are a high level . Just that its not a really new tech. Just new to some people.
Pit Row
No not at all, I'm always more than happy to get into an in-depth discussion about throttles or any other component, we both might learn something haha! I'm not 100% sure you can just swap throttles that easily, the controller needs to be re-calibrated if the hall sensor range is different on the Hirschmann vs the Surron, so I don't think it would be just plug and play or a connector swap. Another thing to keep in mind is the diameter of the Hirschmann is obnoxiously big, to the point where you have to run the front brake way inbound on the handle bars to get the lever to clear the throttle housing on the Varg. That's extremely annoying to me because I don't generally run my controls like the Lawrence brothere.
In the mean time I'm working on a different throttle setup that I'm hoping will be available soon, can't say much at the moment but I'm hoping it's a major upgrade for these bikes and other E-bikes.
Tons of customer reviews now online with over 1000 Vargs delivered, still I liked this Varg review (by a bike mechanic building really nice 2 strokes from broken bikes).
Yeah the Varg is fast and runs good. But we all knew that, regardless of endless reviews.
So does the Rimac Nevara. We can have all kinds of reviews. It’s still bada-s, common knowledge. No real need to keep going over and over how fast or how good it is.
Jorge Zaragoza podium last night in the Finnish SX against quality riders.
Clearly the bike is competitive at high level.
Thanks for the info, I'll add it to the Varg racing thread.
Half a million views for TP Varg review in one month, and that's his most popular vid on YT.
That's not bad for a dirtbike review, there seems to be some interest for this bike.
Chan Baker #350 went for a wild ride on the Varg this weekend😳
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzhMyIlgUsG/?igshid=MXVlc2NhYnJ5MTVsbA==
The farce is beginning to leak out the truth....
I'll just leave this here.
https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/status/1723768946137145458
So much false and misleading info there, it isn't worthy of comment.
Ask yourself whether the professional grid design engineers might actually know what they are doing...or a social media propagandist knows instead.
The farce is having no understanding of the issue at hand and masquerading spreading disinformation as leaking truth.
This guy is confusing peak power, expressed in W where power = current x voltage, with energy consumption, expressed in kW/h where energy consumption = power x time.
For instance, your average US fridge peak power is over 500 W (115 V x 5 A = 575 W). That does not mean it's working 24/7 at full power. Let's be conservative and say it's working 1/4 of the time. Annual energy consumption for this fridge is 575 x 24 x 365 x 1/4 = 1 259 250 Wh, that is 1 259 kWh.
The Varg battery capacity is 6.5 kWh, so you would need to fully charge your Varg 194 times per year (that is at least 150 riding hours a year) for it to consume as much electricity as your fridge. And it will cost you less than $200.
BTW if you're more interested in cars than dirtbikes, typical EV car will go 300 miles with 75 kWh battery. So it will draw as much electricity as your fridge for every 5 000 miles driven. If you're an average US driver driving your EV car about 15 000 miles a year that would be equivalent to the annual consumption of 3 fridges (and $600 electricity bill) or about 30% of your home consumption.
It's ok if you can't remember your highschool science class but if you have any real interest in this topic you should educate yourself or you'll risk making a fool out of yourself.
Why are you guys responding? Grandpa’s just trolling… and it’s as boring and bland as ever.
Agreed it's a long way to call BS.
But that made me learn that if you ride your Varg 50 hours a year it will add 3-4% to your annual home electricity bill.
Great fun all year round for a $70 electricity bill.
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