New Stark Varg EX: Electric Dual Sport, Designed By A Canadian

Stark Future has revealed its first street-legal enduro-style motorcycle, the new Stark Varg EX. It has a spec sheet that crushes just about anything else in this corner of the dual sport world, and it even has a Canadian connection.

Stark Future first came to prominence building high-power electric motocrossers, looking to race them in Supercross and other high-level events, before getting banned by the organizers. They still sell the Varg MX model, but have now added this street-legal enduro Varg EX model.

It’s very similar to the MX edition, but comes with an 18-inch rear wheel for better handling and selection of street-legal rubber (a 21-inch front is standard). The wheels are constructed of Italian-made steel spokes tying Japanese alloy rims to CNC-machined T6 aluminum hubs. The wheels can be configured for either tubes or mousse inserts.

Stark tweaked the design of the Varg’s steel frame in front and back, introducing more flex for better handling on the trails. There’s a closed-cartridge front fork and fully-adjustable linkage-mounted rear shock, both from Kayaba, and both with 300mm of travel. Stark says the linkage offers more ground clearance than competing KTM dirt bikes, but we haven’t had them side-by-side to compare, obviously.

Turn signals are integrated into the sides of the eyeball-searing 4,000-lumen headlight assembly (Canadians will probably get turn signals on stalks, to comply with the regulators). Stark spec’d Brembo brakes (two-pistol caliper mated to 260mm front disc; 220mm rear disc with single-piston caliper). The bikes will come to North America with a foot-operated rear brake, but you can retro-fit a handbrake setup with factory parts. Maybe you should retro-fit the Euro-style integrated turn signals at the same time.

The motor makes lots of jam, considering this is a 264-pound bike. It’s rated at 80hp, with 764 lb-ft of torque, all of which can be detuned to appease regulators (or worrywarts scared of horsepower). However, the battery is perhaps the weakest point of this whole system. The 7.2kWh design is beefed-up from the MX bike, but it’s still supposed to last only just over two hours when ridden at a competent amateur pace; that time drops to under two hours for a pro-level pace. A beginner is supposed to get about four hours from the battery if they’re taking it slow. That means you won’t get very far from home (maybe 80 klicks) before needing to recharge again, which will take you about two hours on Stark’s charging stand.

Oh, and the Canadian connection? Ex-pat designer Jack Morris works for Varg and was heavily involved with this machine. Look him up on social media here. And yes, we do expect this machine will be Canada-legal, probably at a price tag of over $18,000 if it gets here.