An invite to ride the Stark Varg EX for two days in the Pyrenees mountains hit my inbox, and my lungs filled with nervously excited air. You see, I’ve been trying to get into the off-road world, and there’s arguably no off-road bike with more hype around it than the EX. But there was a problem.
Getting an invite is one thing, but going to test this motorcycle is an entirely different story, and it forced me to face the imposter syndrome that sometimes surrounds this job. The fact that the EX wears the “world’s most powerful enduro bike” badge didn’t help my anxiety.
See, I have two decades of riding in my locker, including a bit of motocross and some off-roading. But enduro? My view of enduro had always been folks who grew up riding trials or decent-level motocross and were freaks on two-wheels over any terrain. More recently, however, the riders I hear getting into enduro have experience similar to mine, and that got me thinking, “What if I am the perfect person to test this bike?”.
If the EX was just a regular Stark Varg with lights and indicators, I’d probably be dictating this to you from a hospital bed because that’s like a razor. And you don’t want to navigate downhill rock sections or slippy, wet, shale on a razor because you’ll end up, well, like you’ve been riding a razor—especially if you’re still trying to get to grips with this whole enduro thing.
But the EX didn’t just help me keep my medical insurance premium down; it turned me into an enduro rider for two days and, in true Stark Future fashion, it did so in very clever ways. It was, however, going to take me a while to trust in it and get out of my own head.
Off to A Good Start
My mind was as full of mystery when I first opened the throttle on the EX as it was when I got the invite to the launch; I didn’t know how “enduro” things would get, if I’d be going home after breaking more than just levers, and how insane and potentially uncontrollable—for an inexperienced enduro rider—the EX would be.
As I got rolling in the 35 HP mode, there was no shock to my nervous system, and within a few feet, my inner goon came out to see if a slight whack of the throttle would encourage the wheel to spin up on some loose dirt, which it did, but not in a way that got my cheeks clenching. In many ways, this would become the story of the EX over the next few days—it’s so ready and willing for immense violence, but it doesn’t direct it at you.
I found my feet on terrain I was used to: light off-road trails, fire roads, and even some asphalt. But none of these sections felt like they had when I rode any other dual-sport, because there was no reciprocating inertia, which is the feeling you get from a big piston moving up and down while you’re riding. And on these faster off-road sections with hard pack dirt, not having that inertia gave me more confidence that the bike was planted.
The result was me feeling so much more confident standing through fast sections of dirt while turning, when I’d often have found myself sitting midway through the turn out of fear of losing the front.
I knew I was still just doing some fun off-roading, nothing I hadn’t seen in some form before, and hadn’t touched anything that you’d class as “enduro”—yet. All that was in store, however.
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 slowed to a crawl trying to figure out what section of the path would get me into the least amount of trouble later down the line—it didn’t matter, I fell on exposed tree roots before I could decide. But after hopping back on, and using Crawl Mode to gently get myself into the same spot as I was in before I fell, I saw the EX come into its own.
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.
