I love the sound of a two-stroke. I love a 450 thumper. But they are, unfortunately, the past. The last of the dying breed that are gasoline-powered dirt bikes. I know, I know, that may sound like sacrilege coming from the boss at RideApart, but it's the truth.
Gas bikes, like the once-great dinosaurs and plant fauna that power them, are going extinct. Electricity is the dawn of a new era, and that's one to be celebrated.
Again, that sounds off coming from someone who grew up braaping all over town, but electric dirt bikes make far more sense in almost every conceivable way. They're lighter, have less rotating mass which makes them eminently more flickable, produce more power than their gas cousins, and require less maintenance. And, best of all, you can ride them wherever without pissing off your neighbors since they're quiet as hell.
All of those are the reasons why Stark's Varg has become such a hit. All of those are reasons why I see more EV dirt bikes in my town and surrounding area than I do gas bikes. All of those are reasons why gas bikes are dying, and why companies like CFMoto are building these machines.
And as for the latter, we just dug up a highly interesting patent that proves the latter is aiming to go up against the Starks of the world and finally bringing its CF-X to life.
After the briefest of brief teases at EICMA last year, RideApart's dug up more details on CFMoto's upcoming electric dirt bike currently called the CF-X. The bike, which was shown in the background of a press conference, was unmistakably an EV off-roader, but the company didn't release any details, nor even any press images. And when asked about the dirt bike, even company spokespeople were somewhat caught unaware of its existence outside a few long photos that people snapped while it was on stage.
Yet, the CF-X existed, and it was a full-scale mockup at the very least. But after a recent scroll through the patent applications, RideApart discovered more about the dirt bike than what we already had...which was nothing.
The patent's title is beyond nondescript, as it's just "Motorcycle." But when you click through it, it becomes clear from the patent drawings and the patent's Abstract that what we have is CFMoto's electric dirt bike. "A motorcycle, which relates to the technical field of vehicles. The motorcycle comprises a frame, a body covering member, a traveling system, a power assembly, a traction battery, a saddle system, and a heat dissipation system, wherein the frame comprises a main frame; the power assembly comprises a driving electric motor, an accommodating space being formed in the main frame, and the driving electric motor and the traction battery both being located in the accommodating space," states the Abstract.
I don't know about you, but that's pretty definitive.
What I also see in the patent is inverted forks and a rear shock with a remote reservoir, which tells me that CFMoto is taking the CF-X's performance seriously. The battery pack itself is also about as low in the dirt bike's chassis as you can get, and the motor looks stout. Performance figures are obviously nonexistent, as this is a patent we're talking about. There's also some interesting cooling features, which appear to be built into the bodywork.
And the seat and bodywork itself look straight out of freestyle motocross, as there look to even be grab handles. How that'd work given the X Games' banning of Stark's Varg from the competition is yet to be seen. But given that's where the industry is heading, I doubt the event organizers will be able to hold back the tide for all that long. That ban's also bullshit to begin with.
Other than that, little else is available to go on, but the CF-X patent looks like a true competitor to the Stark Varg, as well as some of the other upcoming electric dirt bikes on the horizon. We'll have to wait and see what the specs are, but given the push toward the technology in the industry, despite current American politics, it's going to likely be something very cool indeed.
