I recently spent a couple of days in the Pyrenees, putting the 2025 Stark Varg EX through its paces. It deserves all the praise for instill...
I recently spent a couple of days in the Pyrenees, putting the 2025 Stark Varg EX through its paces. It deserves all the praise for instilling in me the enduro mentality I have now.
An invitation to go for a ride.Stark Varg EXWhen the invitation to spend a couple of days riding in the Pyrenees arrived in my email, I felt a rush of nervous excitement. The reason? I'm keen to explore the off-road biking scene, and the EX is perhaps the most talked-about off-road bike out there. However, there was an obstacle.
Receiving an invitation is one thing, but actually going to evaluate this motorcycle is something else entirely. It made me confront the feeling of being a fraud that occasionally comes with this profession. The EX's claim of being the "world's most powerful enduro bike" certainly didn't ease my worries.
See, I've got two decades of riding experience under my belt, including some time spent in themotocross and some off-roadingHowever, my perception of enduro riders was always that they were exceptionally skilled on any surface, having come from trials or a reasonable level of motocross. Lately, though, I've noticed that the people getting into enduro have backgrounds similar to my own, which made me wonder, "Maybe I'm actually the ideal person to evaluate this motorcycle?".
If the EX model were simply a standard Stark Varg equipped with lights and turn signals, I would likely be relaying this information to you from a hospital bed, as it would be incredibly unforgiving. You wouldn't want to descend rocky terrain or navigate slick, damp shale on such a machine, because the outcome would be as if you had been riding a razor—particularly if you're still in the process of familiarizing yourself with the nuances of enduro riding.
The EX didn't simply lower my health insurance costs; it also transformed me into an enduro rider for a couple of days. And, as Stark Future typically does, it achieved this through some ingenious methods. However, it would take some time for me to have faith in the bike and stop overthinking.
Beginning Well
When I initially twisted the throttle on the EX, my head was just as filled with uncertainty as when I received the invitation to its debut. I was unsure to what extent the ride would be "enduro," whether I'd be returning home with more than just broken levers, and how wild and possibly unmanageable the EX would prove to be, especially for someone with limited enduro experience.
Once I started using the 35 HP setting, I didn't experience any jarring sensation. Almost immediately, my mischievous side emerged, curious to see if a quick twist of the throttle would cause the wheel to spin on the loose dirt. It did, but not in a way that made me tense up. This pretty much sums up my experience with the EX over the following days—it's incredibly eager and capable of extreme power, but it doesn't unleash it in a way that's threatening to the rider.
I was back on familiar ground: easy dirt tracks, access roads, and even paved surfaces. However, these stretches didn't feel the same as they had on other dual-sport bikes I'd ridden. This was due to the absence of reciprocating inertia – that sensation caused by a large piston's up-and-down motion during riding. On those quicker dirt sections with firmly packed soil, the lack of this inertia actually made me feel more secure, as if the bike was more firmly connected to the ground.
The outcome was a significant boost in my confidence when navigating quick, dirt-filled sections while cornering. Previously, I would often sit down halfway through the turn, afraid of the front wheel losing traction.
I recognized that I was simply enjoying some casual off-road driving, encountering nothing unfamiliar, and hadn't yet ventured into anything that could be considered "enduro"—but that was all to come.
I Can Enduro?
Until now, I was picking lines for fun—little jump here, small wheelie there, put the rear end out if I was feeling ballsy. But with a quick warning from our trail leader—shoutout to Dani for all the help and advice through the launch—we were tackling a whole new terrain. I wasn’t choosing lines solely for fun anymore: I was choosing them just to make it through the section.
Eventually, I decelerated to a snail's pace, attempting to determine which part of the trail would cause me the fewest problems further ahead. It was all for naught, as I tripped over some exposed tree roots before I could make a decision. However, after remounting and carefully employing Crawl Mode to return to my previous position, I witnessed the EX truly shine.
When I was desperately trying to run through the fundamentals of body positioning to get over the tree blocking my way, the smoothness and consistency of the EX’s power delivery and fact that I was running a mousse on the rear, gave me grip and the feeling of grip like I’d never experienced before off-road.
The difficulty of this section didn’t relent, but I had new confidence in the EX and, more importantly, myself. Once the tire broke traction, I had plenty of time to shift my bodyweight back to find more, or roll off the throttle without fear of an engine bogging down or cutting out.
The way the EX predictably dishes out power through the 14,200 rpm rev range, the fact I didn’t have to think about keeping it in its power band with a clutch or different gear selection, and knowing that I could maneuver this thing with excruciatingly slow progress without fear of stalling, left me with the mental capacity to keep the bike moving through sections that many would have difficulties hiking.
Then, everything got silly, and I said to myself, “Ah, OK, this is enduro.”.
As I waited for a fallen rider to get back on his EX and try to clear the section ahead, I had plenty of time to analyze my line and came up with… nothing. All I knew was I had to make it to a near-vertical section where the bike would need enough momentum to shoot up over the lip and, hopefully, I’d be atop. The biggest problem with keeping that momentum between the trees, exposed roots, rocks, and stumps that stood between me and the lip I wanted to summit.
Just 20 seconds later, I was on my ass and ready to go again. The EX didn’t make me afraid of failing, but rather addicted to trying and (sometimes) succeeding, which is what made me start to feel like an enduro rider.
I eventually got up the face of the ledge in as ugly a fashion as you can imagine and, although I’d wanted more momentum so I’d pop up and land, rather than drag the bike up on the verge of flipping it or digging the rear tire into the dirt, I felt like I had conquered the final boss. God, I was so naive.
Yin and Yang
Remember when I told you the EX had violence living somewhere in its powertrain? Well, I spent most of my trip knowing it was there but using its 202 lb-ft of torque to pull myself over the obstacles that stood between me and where I wanted to go. But when that obstacle is a natural step-up jump that lands you on a gradient you could barely walk up and continues for as far as you can see through the trees, well, you need violence.
I initially thought when the trail leader suggested we could try this section he was joking, and the silence followed by unsure laughter from other members of the group backed up my assessment. He was not.
I’d been wanting to give the EX the absolute beans for a while now, but on my terms. What I didn’t want was to have to give it everything for fear that, if I didn’t, I’d be falling back over arse down a mountainside chased by a 265 lb enduro bike. But that feeling of being an enduro rider, that this was somehow now just my life, had taken over, and I volunteered to hit it.
After lining myself up and to the encouragement of all the other riders—enduro riding produces a hell of a community—I whacked it on. Momentarily, I was transported to a memory of being in a carnival ride where you’re trapped in a cage that gets launched into the air by industrial bungee cords. On the EX, one second you’re here, and the next you’re gone, whether using the full 80 HP on tap or not.
The power took me beyond the step-up jump, and thanks to that grippy mousse-filled tire at the rear and a nuclear bomb of torque in my right hand, we—I say “we” because by now the EX was my teammate, not just a bike I was testing—catapulted up the hillside until it leveled off and I could could turn around and head back down. But if the violence of the EX is the Ying, then it’s the bike’s ability to go back down conquered mountains that’s its Yang.
Compared to the Stark Varg MX, the fully adjustable KYB suspension on the EX has slightly less travel but is quite a bit softer. Match this with the fact that Stark has given the frame 25% more flex, and you’ve got a much more forgiving motorcycle than the standard MX. I didn’t know it yet, but that forgiveness was about to save me, countless times.
I never knew I struggled so much with off-road descents until Stark Future put me in the Pyrenees mountains and picked trails filled with what I would call small boulders. That might be a slight exaggeration but this was the terrain where I dared not touch the front brake for fear of hitting a rock and collapsing the front end or, even worse, sending me over the handlebars.
As my heart rate soared, so did the lactic acid in my forearms, and just pulling the handlebar-mounted rear brake was difficult. But not as difficult as if I had to use a traditional foot brake, considering how often my feet were coming off the pegs. After a few too many hairy moments where I felt like I was along for the ride courtesy of gravity, I remembered I could stick the regenerative braking way up, so I did.
Instantly, a load was taken off, and when problems were coming at me faster than I could process them, and my fingers could barely keep the brakes engaged, the bike’s regen braking kept the speed manageable, while still ensuring the front tire had all the grip it needed. Without the handlebar-mounted rear brake and the ability to turn up the regenerative braking to a level that almost felt like the bike wanted to go in reverse, I know I’d have fallen hard in more than one of the downhill sections.
See, one tap on the switchgear could send this bike from 10 hp with no engine braking to 80 hp with engine braking that feels like you’ve slammed on the Brembos. You can dial in the power delivery (within reason) to make the EX act exactly how you want it, and when riding through ever changing landscapes, this makes the EX an incredible enduro bike, because sometimes I wanted to rip around with 50 HP or crawl through technical rocky sections with 20 HP.
The fully customizable power curve also makes the EX a bike that you can grow with, and going down this rocky mountain, I was in the growth stage of just trying not to break my collarbone.
By the time I’d leveled off the last of the downhill sections, I’d done it all. I’d slowly and precisely made my lines through gnarly landscapes, catapulted myself up natural jumps and inclines I wouldn’t walk, and skittishly gotten down descents laden with scarily sharp rocks. I may not have done it well, but I did it all with the mentality that made me want to try more, the enduro mentality, as I see it, and I wouldn’t have gotten there without the EX.
Not For Everyone, Thankfully
I’m not anti-EV, but I’ve never been the one to beat the drum for total EV dominance either. To be cliche, variety is the spice of life, and that’s truer in the world of motorcycling than almost anywhere else.
My point is, I don’t want the smell of blue smoke and sounds of a pinned two-stroke to disappear from the world of enduro, nor do I want to lose the opportunity to learn how to clutch-up and wheelie over obstacles. Thankfully, there are enough electric haters to ensure ICE bikes stick around for a while longer. But if I do enter the world of enduro, I probably won’t be mixing my gas.
The amount I progressed during my two days of riding, thanks to the predictability, forgiveness, and how the EX allowed me to focus on fundamentals, made me want to ride it as much as my body would allow and feel like an enduro rider—not in ability, but in my mindset.
I rode past what I thought my body was capable of because I was surpassing my predetermined idea of my capability, and that made my brain pump out dopamine, hit after hit. I didn’t get why people did enduro before—I thought they were all masochists—but I do now, and I don’t think I’d have gotten to this perspective during just two days of riding on any other bike.
What’s still playing on my mind is how far the EX could take my perspective and growth off-road, given the fact that its adjustability allows you to transform its power and engine braking curve on the fly. You’re essentially getting five bikes in one at any given moment, which makes its $13,990 price tag look anything but over the top, and, if you can live with 60 HP—I write in jest—, the price drops to $12,990. And you can legally daily it if you want to be biggest menace on your commute.
- This EV Moto Maker Is Betting It Can Turn Its Badass Dirtbike Into a Road Bike
- This Motorcycle Racing Org Caught Smoke For Banning EV Dirt Bikes, Now They're Back
COMMENTS