I Tested the STARK VARG Electric Motorcycle
so a few months ago I got a phone call from my new friend my dirt bike Hello
We need you and the VA for a mission
I’m in Where do we go
Stand by your phone Directions are coming And apparently it does not respect my time cuz I’ve been waiting for months and then this happened Sean the Stark Var claims to not only be the fastest and most powerful dirt bike on the planet but it’s also the turning point into the future of all motorcycles I don’t believe it I need you to test the bike out bikes and beard style and find out for sure So after trying to figure out how Craig actually got this number I came up with a plan Now you may have seen some pretty talented people reviewing this motorcycle and doing some pretty cool stuff on these things But what happens when someone with no talent puts it through a series of tests including finding out once and for all how much range this thing actually gets Racing it against some old Harley I got laying around the shop and testing out some alternative charging methods that y’all have been talking about And once we’re done I’m going to figure out if I’m going to actually make this thing my new dirt bike or just let it go And don’t forget Partzilla is our summer sponsor and they’re helping us give away parts to our super fans to help finish their next project and I’ll be announcing the next winner of that in this video So we know these things can do jumps We know that they’re pretty quick but everyone wants to know is this right for them Can they can this be the bike that they ride And the biggest question on everyone’s mind is can I commute to work with that bike Now the average blue collar worker commutes 25 miles one way to get to work That’s 50 miles round trip The question on my mind is can you buy this and still do that commute Let’s find out So we got the bike ready and headed off to see if the bike could do it But then we had an unusual major flaw in the Stark Var One that no one seemed to be talking about You mind checking the tire pressure on this front tire The Var tire was at zero PSI It’s never been ridden since you put new tires in it All right let’s go Fudge Dang it Joe this time front tire is flat He just put 17 lbs in it I’m already I can take my finger through it So I turned around and took the bike back to the shop with a flat front tire The good news is I know exactly what the problem is The bad news is I’m not sure if we have the stuff to fix it right now So Stark Varc decided that when they were going to put inner tubes inside their motorcycles they decided to use the thinnest possible mater like this doesn’t even look like a I don’t know what they were thinking I showed this to a buddy who races motocross He’s like “What is that?” He thought it was an inflatable toy And I’m like “No this is actually an inner tube This is not a a tire tube.” And from hearing it from a deal one of the biggest dealerships in the country every single one of these leaks So we replaced the back tire and didn’t replace the front tire Why are they using this I have no idea They’re saving money with this I’ve never seen anything like this but they all leak It’s crazy Let’s get this thing back on the charger Try to get up to 100% I’m not sure if we’ve ever got it up to 100% We’ll try to get to 100% and see if we can change that tire and then go do the thing So here’s something unexpected It turns out that all of these tubes are destined to fail Not in a catastrophic way but still it’s going to fail Kind of bizarre Also we had the bike charged up to 100% a few days earlier Then letting it sit for just a few days we noticed that the battery had already dropped from 100% to 89% Kind of weird right But we were able to swap out the bad tube for a standard one put it back in the bike charge up to 100% and now we’re ready for the real test to see if this thing can handle a typical 50m roundtrip commute for your average blue collar worker Well let’s find out [Music] We got to get to work This is like the 35 horsepower mode 34 horsepower At this mode this is faster than any Suron I’ve ever ridden Unless it was modified to the max Just modified the whole way out So the Segways or the Surons this is already faster I’m going to get in front of y’all right now I’m at 95% So currently kind of cruising at a normal commuter level pace we’ve done four miles and it only took away 7% of our battery If that’s true this thing’s going to easily be able to do the commute I think Okay change of plans We’re at 5 miles and now it’s at 91% So maybe we can do the commute Llama Llama Llama Llama Llama Llama Yo what up llama Yo I’m saving my drama for that guy Yo you saved the drama for the llama Like your mama Like yo llama So we got a problem Well maybe we don’t Claus is 10 ft tall What do they call this bridge The can opener I’m pretty sure Claus is 9 ft 6 in Here I’ll spot you Oh yeah You got it Oh man And we had like tons of space All right now we’re at 14 mi and 76% So about 20% got us 14 mi That would give us a range of 70 mi If that stays consistent this is way more We we will have blown anyone’s expectations out of the water I’m going regen my back myself back to 50% There we go Back to 50% region All right so we are at 49% 34 and a half miles The longest range I’ve ever heard anyone claim on one of these things was only 36 mi We said 34.5 If we keep on going at this that’s got to be like 70 mi That can absolutely do a commute The problem is sometimes the first half of the battery life is different than the second half of the battery life Let’s see how far this thing can go The toughest part about this entire test was not bumping up the horsepower and doing wheelies and really hard pulls which really kills the battery fast but is so much fun to do and it’s probably the reason why you buy this bike I’m able to restrain myself so far but not sure how much longer I can hold back But I’m going to try it for science After almost 2 hours of riding on the road which is not really what this bike is meant to do we started running out of juice And when I say juice I don’t mean actual juice I mean battery Once we hit like 15% we’ll start headed back We’ll start heading back to the shop This is a good road This road will drain the battery You can go faster All right so we’ve done 49 miles and we have 21% left All right now we’re on 18% and the color changed Now it’s orange The faster you go it’s definitely using up a whole lot more battery The slower you go anything like 35 and under it seems to barely use battery But now we’re going closer to 50 and it’s definitely uh dropping quickly We got to start slowing down soon I’m dropping We need to get on a slower road soon All right 4% Let’s see if I can stretch this out Now that I’m on a slower road I should be able to get a little more out of this 2% Let’s get that regen Try to get the 3% Come on All right so we have 2% We got to get four and a half miles That seems impossible Here we go Region a little bit Come on regen Give me 3% All right so I’m not going fast but I’m not going that slow I’m probably I’m still going like 25 maybe 30 miles an hour cuz I don’t really feel like loading up this bike in the back of the trailer It’s hot outside All right we’re at 1% I am in trouble Somehow I’m at 0% Apparently 0% is not 0% Let’s see if we go into the negative 0% We’re so close Stop It might not let me go start again That’d be super hilarious if I broke down right now Uh oh Nope Still going Still going Now I’m giving it all she’s got Pull in here Pull right there Pull right there Let’s let these guys go real quick I might have a little bit more I want to go until it actually doesn’t let me go anymore All right This is as far as it I’m done I’m tapped out Backup mode Hold up Maybe I got a little bit more in me Nope But it’ll go backwards And somehow it’s got tons of power to go backwards Low battery voltage Bike is stopped due to critical low battery voltage That’s it She tapped out All right So there you have it Just driving normal commute back roads Most of it 59.1 mi That’s not bad That can definitely do the average commute and back And you could charge it up when you get to your job I’m pretty impressed But we have a lot more stuff to do We have a lot more ways to test this bike out So we loaded up the bike in the trailer and headed back to the shop to throw this thing back on the trailer so we can get back to our test So let’s see how long it takes this thing to charge up from like -1 up to 100 And then I al I want to see what it takes up to get it to 80 Also it’s not actually acknowledging that it’s plugged in So it took 2 hours to get the bike to 50% and that should be more than enough for us to challenge it against one of the fastest off-road electric vehicles on the planet But then we had a little bit of an issue Not with the bike but with the phone The Android phone that everyone in the comments said was significantly better than Apple phone All right so while we’re actually getting ready for the next thing this thing is being goofy It’s It won’t get out of neutral The screen is locked It’s not changing anything But unless we get out of neutral on the bike but then the whole infotainment system is not working I don’t know I guess I could restart the phone Is that a droid thing you guys have to do a lot Oh it’s getting hot Restart This thing is on fire So another thing we’re gonna find out is will the bike overheat And even before that the phone’s overheating It’s like doing like Windows DOS stuff It’s doing like a test on itself Pass everything Pass
Cyber attack
Let’s go put that in the in the van My gasoline powered dirt bikes don’t break like that The phone does not break I guess you don’t really have infotainment You don’t really have a screen on a dirt bike anyway I guess that’s fine We don’t need it I did my best to mow a little drag strip in this random field that I found but I wanted to do a few test runs because there’s a few large rocks and some sink holes that I need to make sure I avoid when riding this bike Then I would be ready to take this thing headto head with a thing So the Stark Var has got a pretty impressive claim if it’s real and that is that it is one of the fastest off-road electric vehicles ever made Well let’s find out [Music] against the Cyber Truck I asked my neighbor if I can borrow his Tesla truck to uh go get some groceries Good thing he doesn’t watch my videos You can say what you want about the Cyber Truck People say it’s ugly I think it’s kind of cool looking It’s pretty quick for a big old truck Hard to not admit that And when you’re racing someone with it who also has an electric bike you can both hear each other talk All right Joe you ready
I’m ready You ready
Yeah You give the count off
Three two one go
Hold up Hold up Go back
Mine popped into neutral The count off took too long Oh
like I it was my fault So here’s something I wish they would fix or give me the opportunity to go in the computer and go on my phone and then change this If you’re sitting there for like more than 10 seconds or se whatever it’s very short amount of time It just goes in into neutral So you’re waiting you’re lined up you’re ready to do it you go it it doesn’t go anywhere You got to press the button again And I hate to say it but this ends up being kind of a recurring theme for every time we try to do something with this bike
Back a little more Right A little more Right A little more Right there That looks good All right we’re back All right do it again 3 2 1 go Who won
I think you did man
I was beating him pretty bad in the beginning I didn’t see him so I started kind of sandbagging and I think he kind of pulled through it in the end
Yeah
Let’s try it again Who won last one Did you win
Yeah To the cone You had meag I started sandbagging at the end
Me too
Oh were you
Yeah
All right I guess we were both sandbagging All right
Dang it
Count it off Joe Three two one go All right you got it that time
What happened that time
Nothing You went faster
That’s not fair You were faster All right we’re going one more time I’ll give you the jump
I’m going to slow down a little bit before the cone This time when I got to the cone and I stepped on the brakes it just started sliding
Okay So I’m going to stop like
I’ll stop before the cone too
Okay
So let’s race to that first camera
Okay
We could probably get to 60 mph before that camera is
I’ll be able to tell you
all out
All right You ready 3 2 1 go 49 mph Wow who won So I beat the Cybertruck However for all those Cybertruck fans out there the Cybertruck didn’t really start the pool until about 50 mph and then it really started the pool hard So I’m not saying it was the fairest of all races I was also not even at full power or as they say my final form but as we will see later it wouldn’t have mattered anyway So they say outside it’s 97° The index is 111 I got to cool down And you know this bike’s got a cool down too The cool thing is we can cool off inside the shipping container because earlier most interesting about it is the cost And not the cost of what it cost me to buy it but the cost after that So what I want to do is I want to compare this bike to another bike one of the other most powerful bikes out there the KTM 500 And you guys know I’m a huge KTM fan So do I do all the normal things that normal KTM call followers do [Music] Did I sell all my possessions to give to this church of KTM just to get more KTM Yeah I did Do I now sleep under a bridge if you call that sleeping Both bikes are fairly similar in initial price Somewhere around the $12,000 $13,000 Actually this is a little bit cheaper than the KTM But I’m not concerned about that I’m concerned about the price and the cost of owning it afterwards Okay Also if you’re wondering why this stuff is here on the table I didn’t want to have an empty table So it’s not really So we’re going to make three assumptions One nothing breaks down on this bike This is just normal routine maintenance Two we’re not going to factor in wear items like tires and inner tubes and hydraulic oil for the for the clutch um that both bikes have So both bikes are dealing with the same stuff We’re we’re going to eliminate like you know it’s a wash And three we’re going to assume this over a time span of 10,000 mi which is you know that’s a lot of time So over that amount of time the KTM will have done 22 oil changes Let’s assume 150 bucks a piece which I think is very kind of cheap that ends up being $3,300 over the life of the the time you own your bike Then let’s look at air filters that doesn’t have an air filter So every time you change oil you change the air filter or clean the air filter Let’s assume and this is this is dealer prices so it could be cheaper Let’s assume $50 every time you do the oil oil change times 22 that’s $1,100 Now because it’s an internal combustion engine you got to check the valves The valves going to be checked every,000 miles That’s 10 times It’s going to cost you about 300 bucks to have those valves checked and adjusted That’s another $3,000 Then coolant change You only have to change that once in that 10,000 milei interval That should only cost you about 150 bucks in for the entire time And we didn’t hit it yet but we’re we’re about to hit it So they say about every 11,000 mi you need a bottom end replacement That’s going to happen once and that’s going to be $3,500 bucks Add all of that up including the cost of fuel which let’s assume around $1,400 in fuel you will have paid an additional what it cost you to buy a Stark Var 12,450 bucks The Stark Varg on the other hand doesn’t need any of those and has no unique maintenance or service things that the KTM that the KTM has Now I know what you’re saying You’re like Sean what about the battery What about the motor Those are all crazy expensive to replace They’re actually not that bad Let’s kind of dive into it If your motor blows up in your KTM and you throw a rod and it breaks the casing and you have to replace the whole thing an OEM crate motor KTM 500 engine it’s going to cost you about 7,800 bucks just for the engine not including of putting it in there Compared to this the battery is going to cost you around $3,000 And if you have to replace the motor $3,700 bucks So that motor and battery the two biggest components that put them together that’s pretty much the same as your the engine Still $1,000 cheaper The battery is rated to last 1,000 charge cycles and still maintain 80% of its capacity Now that’s the equivalent of around 22,000 mi on that motorcycle And it can still keep on going It’s just not going to be as efficient every time you charge it up The motor however is a brushless motor That means virtually there is no wear items Meaning that thing is rated for a million miles Which basically means every other part on this bike will probably fail The seat the spokes the wheels the everything else will probably fail before the motor actually fails which is the most expensive part I mean the forge carbon will probably deteriorate and flake off before the motor goes bad unless it gets damaged So for the price of a whole another one of these bikes that’s what it cost you to maintain a KTM That’s assuming that that bike never broke Nothing ever broke on it That means none of the plastic gears that they put inside the engine Sometimes they don’t fail Nothing else fails which is let’s be honest it’s a KTM Something’s going to fail For the next challenge I wanted to show you what it might look like to do a small hill climb in all the different power modes You can adjust the power modes in one horsepower increments starting from 10 all the way up to 80 Let’s see how it goes All right so this is the bike in mode one and that’s 10 horsepower Super fast This is full throttle That was 10 horsepower Now let me do it in two That’ll be 20 horsepower Literally double the horsepower Mode three 30 horsepower Let’s try mode 4 40 horsepower Let’s try 50 horsepower All right cuz there’s only five modes I got to go in and make a 60 and a 70 and 80 horsepower mode We’ll make 5 80 We’ll make 470 Make 360 Save it
Alpha power Dick Let make sure they’re what I think it is Five is alpha So we’re going to do mode three now And that should be 60 horsepower I do think it’s pretty awesome that you can just take this bike from slow anyone can ride it give it to your dad and then make it fast where it’s almost too much for almost everybody All on a click of a button You’re good That was good reaction You held it until you’re like he might be running into me
Yeah I trust you Sean And even then I’m not even sure what the right thing to do would have been I saw you but uh it worked out good I’m glad it worked out well for everybody All right let’s do mode four That was 70 horse There was zero moments where I was using even half the throttle in that It already wants to wheelie the whole time and now you’re up here so it wants to flip you Let’s just go all the way and try 5 80 horse alpha mode It was like 20% I needed to be honest with you my riding skills and this bike should probably be around 40 I would never have an alpha mode only in one situation if I’ve got a clear straight perfectly smooth groomed wide path and I was drag racing somebody But that’s just me and I’m not that great But this bike is pretty cool though And all the stuff we just did we only used like 3% riding around up the hill full thrott like this is what it’s made to do But I do want to know if we can prove Craig and figure out this is as good as everyone says it is My big question is is this going to work for me in riding on the farm with my boys And is it going to be able to last as long as I need it to last and hold up to the stuff I need to hold up Let’s do the other thing So the next question on everybody’s mind is will it log Let’s find out They say your dirt bike is only as good as the log it can pull Just so happens I need something to log I need something that can log some stuff cuz I got a lot of logs I got to move So I started cutting up this fallen tree I found in the woods Logging has actually been a staple activity amongst motorcycle riders for decades It’s kind of a right of passage to many cultures To show you what I mean here’s an old video I dug up And when I say dug up I mean a robot made it The goal is simple See if I can tow a log out of the woods using nothing but your motorcycle and a little bit of ingenuity dragging it all the way back to where you want to store or take the log So the plan is to attach this giant log weighing hundreds of pounds to the chain and to this piece of wood and then the chain to my pegs so the chain does not get caught up in my wheels Let’s see if this bike can log This is a great idea and this is guaranteed to work really well Obviously all right let’s do it I know what I need More power Hold up More power [Music] And actually hold up More power actually worked this time
Yes More power More power Let’s go back to less power less buried Sean do it again You’re You’re throwing rooster tails to like way back there It’s awesome [Music] Look what happens when I do back it up Look at this He doing the moonwalk It moonwalks
Ooh moonwalk
It’s backup power is like frontwheel drive It’s got crazy backup power I’m probably better off logging this thing backwards So it wasn’t working with the big log But then I had an idea and the guys made some small changes And to my surprise things started to work I’m doing it We’re logging [Music] Yeah You got hooked and you lost your log Now you’re just combing the trail
Oh it fell off
I know It fell off way back here It’s cool You’re logging I thought I was logging Maybe it’s not good at logging Hey guys let’s go this way So we know this bike is fast Faster than any other dirt bike we’ve ever tested It’s also significantly faster than the Cyber Truck even on a lower horsepower setting But the question I have is is it faster than an old gas burning Harley-Davidson Heat [Music] Heat [Music] Now to give each motorcycle the best chance at a victory I will be riding the Harley-Davidson and my friend Brock will be riding the Stark Var Now I beat him but he was only in the 50 horsepower mode He’s going to bump up to 60 and see what happens But I’ve got a theory and I don’t think it’s going to be any better Let’s go try it out
You ready
Yep
Three two one go That’s how them racers do it right there So I beat him in 60 horsepower Let’s see what happens in 70 horsepower And if my theory is correct it’s not going to be any better Let’s go find out Feel all right
Yeah I feel good 3 2 1 go So let’s see what happened
What happened on that one
You can’t keep the front end down
Exactly
Yeah
Do you want to Should we try Should we try uh that mode again Yeah we do it one more time
and then go to the next mode
I wheelied halfway down Yeah we’ll do one more You couldn’t keep the front end down power of this electric engine is more than I ever imagined And to put this on street where you’re getting good traction it’s just the tires are hooking up so well makes the bike try to loop out every single time I’m having to ride the back brake just to keep the front end down and really do throttle discipline here So all right up on the seat Here we go I’m doing everything I can to keep the front end down but it looks like I’m trying to ride a wheelie and I’m really not So the problem I’m seeing right now is that there’s no clutch to help me control the bike So I’m riding like this and there’s nothing there to to kind of bring the front end down I’m having to use my throttle control and I’m having to use my rear brake to keep the front end down which makes me not go as fast forward So um it’s just hard to figure out how to get that bike to move forward without going up So uh that was mode four Let’s see if we can do mode five which is alpha mode It is a wheelie machine Now let’s see what happens in the mighty alpha mode
3 2 1 I want another one of those I was a little bit more timid on the throttle because I know how fast this thing will loop me out onto my back And I realize by by going slower I can go faster What I mean is in this alpha mode where it’s 80 horsepower I’m more gentle on the throttle And so I’m getting a little better pull than I was even in the in number four So let’s try this here one more time One more time
He wants to do one more
One more time It’s not like dump the clutch on a motocross track I got to really ease into it once I get past the hump I was holding him
3 2 1 Oh so close So close I thought I was going to smoke him at some point today That hardly fast Dang It’s an adrenaline rush for sure man Now at this point you might be wondering what happened Or you might be thinking “Oh Brack that guy doesn’t know how to ride.” Well let me explain to you exactly what happened And I was right It has too much unusable power the way it’s currently configured with the wheelbase and and and everything It’s too hard to keep the bike from looping out or just flipping back on you When you’re racing you’re dealing with two main factors: traction and power Clearly we had enough traction because the wheel was not just spinning spinning loose and it was it was keeping on the ground and wanted to wheelie So you have plenty of traction You have too much power cuz it wants to flip you back over and you have to limit how you can how you can distribute the power If the bike was stretched which means it had a longer swing arm and it was harder for it to wheelie or if it had like a big wheelie bar like like a drag bike would it’d be so incredibly fast But right now the way it’s set up is the only way to regulate the power is with the throttle or on an electric motor or speed the speed controller On a regular motorcycle you can regulate the power output not just with the throttle but also with the clutch and slipping the clutch So you’re at full throttle You have the the clutch is engaged Give a little bit of clutch and now you’re 80% throttle It kind kind of holds back That’s what this bike does not have And this is why the Harley is three times heavier only has 50% more power and walk that electric bike every single time And guys you’ve been waiting for the for the first winner of our Partzilla parts giveaway Partzilla is our summer sponsor for this entire summer And every video they are sponsoring parts to give away to one of you guys So the first winner is Josh S from Kansas He wrote us a really touching story and he’s putting his brother’s bike back together So Partzilla hooked him up with new wheel bearings a set of Michelin tires and then a shifter We have a new winner coming up next video So if you want to be part of this email us at this email below and tell us your story and tell us what parts you need and why you need them to get your bike running And thank you again for Partzilla for help us
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