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Only $10 for all 2026 SX, MX, and SMX series.
Not until the OEMs have their own E-bikes ready to market.
Yup, Kullas is known for his indoor prowess, lol.
British AX kicked all the relatively fast (read "french SX Tour guys") out...
"That being said, the sooner the AMA allows Stark to race in SX, the sooner we'll really know what he Varg is worth against the best, and..."
...that's not going to happen anytime soon.
https://youtu.be/ulNzo1YypII?si=SAgJLNqrU025RFD-&t=319
"It's the future, it's great, but no, thanks."
When more Starks (eMX bikes) are sold and ridden in the amateur level than ICE, everything will work itself out.
For the Anti E movement just buy some gas powered chain saws and have at it.
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As a commercial proposition I wouldn't want to be a race promoter with electric on the horizon. No one in the game is looking forward to that prospect.
At club /national level where the market is competitor focused, that's a different thing. Who knows what will happen there.
Does this mean you wont be going to the UKAX events at all?
When hens grow teeth.
Watch it carefully, these teeth are growing fast.
MX market is such a niche market (about 80 000 bikes a year according to O'Neale CEO) it wouldn't take much for Stark to get to 5-10% market share in their first full year.
I guarantee you Prater was walking on egg shells during that "friendly" E-bike chat. 2 years from now you hear him saying "Yeah, things moved faster than anyone imagined with E-bikes..."
It's all about money to Prater. If E-Bikes coming to the sport brings in more money (from whomever) it will happen.
Actually after the 18K butt rush that turned out to be BS things looked to have stalled out a bit.
You don't give a rats ass but you have 10% of the responses in this thread as of now?
Not to mention you sure spend a lot of time in every single Stark thread for "not giving a rats ass"
#endchildslavery
I’m an electric fan…but AMA SX is the premier dirt bike series in the world…honestly, AT THIS POINT, Stark is beneath AMA SX, and SX has no reason at all to start changing rules for them. Stark has delivered, what, 1,000 bikes (maybe) TOTAL? They are still an unproven novelty at this point…and unfortunately, is more likely to fail than succeed.
In a few/several years, if Stark is still around, is selling 100,000+ bikes per year (which is still tiny…I think KTM sells 500,000/year)…THEN, AMA, MXGP, the major series in the world, can start talking about changing rules for them….but before then, it’s just a silly notion that the premier series’ in the world should change their rules to accommodate a novelty.
I really don't have a dog in this fight but you think KTM sells 500,000 mx bikes a year ? Remember the homologation threshold is 400 units .
Honestly, I could be wrong…but I’m fairly certain I read that was the total number of bikes they sold (again, I could be wrong)…of course MX specific bike sells is less than that…but I was using the number speaking to company longevity and stability.
Put it this way…as soon as Stark ihas been around for several years, and is selling even 20% of the total number of bikes as KTM (whatever that number might be) then I’d say the major series in the world can start taking note and talking about rule changes.
Gotcha . Yeah wholesale rule changes at the top level wouldn't be warranted I agree . Who knew e-bikes would be such polarizing subject .
There are about 500,000 total motorcycles sold in the US per year including Harleys and all street bikes, scooters, trail bikes etc.
Amateurs, low level national series, and one-off races are the perfect place to run with ICE and see how it goes, but there should really be designated pro electric classes for top level series like other motorsports.
E-bikes aren't polarizing, they're merely clarifying. There are folks out there (an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny little batch of yesterworld-worshipping change-haters) that despise them so much they would rather the sport die off entirely than ride one. Everyone else is either taking a "wait and see" approach or genuinely looking forward to them coming into the marketplace because they will free up so many new riding areas, thereby allowing the sport to turn away from the death spiral it's begun to enter into. I've yet to hear ONE comment from an E-bike supporter who said, "Now that the Varg exists, I loathe all ICE bikes and the people who ride them."
We don't, and never would, because that would just be so damn juvenile. You wanna hate a motocross bike? Go ahead, be weird like that. Myself, I have no interest in it. Myself, I like them ALL.
Watching Bogle fall off reminds me of watching Bowers fall off the racing planet.
Pit Row
As a fan, having a E-bike in the ICE race mix would be one more thing to get me interested in the sport. Just like if the AMA suddenly proclaimed that 500cc 2 stroke bikes could race in the 450 class.
I never decide till on the day normally, but i will save my money for Hawkstone Park, and Telford Classic Show, both in February.
So its a no.
"I've yet to hear ONE comment from a E-bike supporter who said, "Now that the Varg exists, I loathe all ICE bikes and the people who ride them."
I will say that now they have turned up and folk have them, it has gone a bit crickets.
You are an electric fan?
Like this one?
Yep. Unit sales of off-road motorcycles, all brands combined, in 2023 was 119,000.
In terms of unit sales, it is expected that the Off-road Motorcycles market will reach 132.50k motorcyles units in 2028.
https://www.statista.com/outlook/mmo/motorcycles/off-road-motorcycles/u….
Wow . I had no idea the number was that low .
Ha! Good one! ba-da-psssh
Ducati sold 61 562 bikes in 2022, that's their absolute record. I guess they are not a real manufacturer then.
Well they just got lucky and happened to win MotoGP and World superbikes 2 years in a row now.
But hold on, Honda sells 300 times more bikes than Ducati ! Or if you'd prefer the other way, Ducati sales are 0.3% of Honda sales, WTF?
Wait, could it be that worldwide sales numbers are absolutely not a relevant metric to a discussion about competition? Does it matter to the SX crowd that Honda sells 4 millions Super Cub every year?
MX bikes are about 0.1% of Honda 17 million motorcycle annual sales. Maybe MX sales would be what's relevant for MX competition after all.
Of course Stark is a novelty, it's a startup that started selling bikes 6 months ago! All I'm saying, like others here, is that their relevance for MX/SX organizers or sanctioning bodies will depend on their share on the MX market, not over global motorcycle sales.
I'm pretty sure that a lot of their sales are streetable bikes in places like India. And Motocross bikes themselves are a much much smaller number.
And I know I've said this multiple times already. But it would not be a rule change for Stark. Just like the rule change that allowed Yamaha to race the first YZF was not made for Yamaha. Honda has an electric MX bike, Kawasaki has said they will be all electric by 2035 or so. Yamaha is providing EMTB motors batteries and controller's so I imagine they too are working on a full sized MX bike that is electric. It would be a rule that would allow those manufacturers that are working on EMX bikes, to know what to develope. And build a bike to the rules, instead of them all building bikes and then setting the rules.
If Stark can sell enough bikes to meet the Homologation rule, why not work with them to try and figure out a rule that works. Let Stark be the guinea pig for making the electric Rules.
I do think that letting it into open class, and Vet classes at the Am level would be the way to get an idea of how it compares to ICE bikes. You can ride a YZ125 or CR 500, or KX450 in open or vet classes. I think that seeing how the bikes compare in Am level races would give a better idea of what to set power levels at or battery size, discharge rate, ETC. As much as I want to see a top 10 guy get on a Varg and race an AMA SX and see what he cane do. I think going with AMA am series and looking at the data to see what HP levels the Varg racers are using. And how they finish.
In Australia, MX sales are typically 15% of off-road sales, applying that here would mean about 20 000 MX sales in the US.
That can't be too far off considering worldwide sales of 80 000 MX bikes but if anybody has access to precise numbers I'm all ears.
I know I have said it 100 times.. I am all for the OPTION of electric racing bikes, have at it - when Husky makes one, I will buy one too. What I can't stand, folks starting threads like this, trying to draw ICE and electric in parallel, like they are the same, and in the end declaring some sort of victory, like they get a big trophy and a million dollars personally. They are NOT the same, one has the ability of 35% more freaking HP! That is like bringing a 350z and a Bugatti to the track, and feeling like you are king of the hill when the Bugatti wins. Seriously...
When the big OEMs start making them, things will get a lot more real. Until then, these one-offs are just that.. And anybody who acts like any victory for a Stark over an ICE bike is a major award, well no shit, they are easier to ride and make a shitload more HP. "Winning"!!
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