Buying an electric dirt bike (Ultrabee?)

[Marylander]

I see that there are now several DAMN Surron Ultrabees. I'm thinking of doing something along those lines or possibly even the stark varg dualsport (although I'm leaning more to the Ultrabee class as I'm more interested in casual dirt riding nowadays). The Ultrabee and similar medium sized bikes are appealing as I'm not too big and I'm not getting any stronger. Is the Ultrabee the best option in the, er, midsize electric dirt bike class? Anything else I ought to consider? What would be a good place to buy an electric dirt bike?

All I got is questions. ;)

[Bucho]

Hopefully, Stephen will come along (he is pretty knowledgable).

I think most people have bought online. Ive bought parts from electric cycle rider (I believe they sell bikes too)

Have you ridden one? You would be welcome to come over and try mine. Mine is stock other than the KKE 21/18” wheel kit. Stephen has a more modified one.

Im a big fan of the ultrabee. I like the slightly smaller size (and Im 6’), makes it easy to maneuver and lift it over a log when you have to. The low end power is really good for single track. But its never going to be a high speed harescrambles race bike.

Id be interested to ride some sort of enduro Varg. But I think its still pretty much an MX bike.

Arctic Leopard is one Im interested in. Mainly bc they have a bike with really good range. A year or two ago it seemed like some of the fit/finish wasnt as good. But hopefully they will continue to evolve.

The stock ultrabee has “enough” range for the majority of the riding I do at Emmitsburt and a friend’s private property.
But Id love to have 2-3xs the range on a future bike.

At least for now, I dont think any of the electrics will make good dualsports. The higher speed road/dirt road riding burns through the battery too quickly.

[Marylander]

Cool, I've seen some of the electric cycle rider stuff on youtube. I'm well past caring how fast I am. I'd like to return to the kind of dirt riding I did as a kid, just going out and plunking around. Bikes like the ultrabee are pretty appealing for that purpose. I did the cornerspin school on an xr100 and had a lot of fun and the ultrabee is bigger/faster than those bikes (maybe I should've kept the ttr125 ;) ). I've got no interest in dualsporting one either. While I've got 2 electric cars now and it seems like an electric street bike/dual sport would practically need as much battery capacity as a car to be useful. I do hope they get there not too long from now.

How much range do the ultrabees have in our typical kind of dirt riding? I know it adds a huge expense but I wonder about having a 2nd battery too.

I think the stark vargs are on the bigger/more expensive end of things considering that I'm not really trying to ride very seriously (and I still have my xtrainer if I do want to do some more involved riding).

I hadn't seen the arctic leopard. I'll check those out too.

Thanks!

[Bucho]

Im getting several hours of riding. I generally dont keep track of mileage. I dont think Id want to push too much past 20 miles. Ive heard of guys on Ultrabees getting 35-40 miles of riding, but I dont know how they are getting that.

I know running lower gearing and 4-5 psi isnt helping my range but its worth it to me

[smdub]

My UB will do 20-25mi of hard enduro or trail riding. The KTM Freeride-E is about the same. The battery pack capacity is similar on both. People who get more have to be riding really easy stuff and/or using the stock tires pumped way up. I'm running 21/18s w/ rear Tubliss. Going slower has longer range than faster.

I have a spare batt for the UB and KTM-E. Places like Mountain Ridge, Kairos, Cove, etc where all trails loop back to the truck swapping batts works well. Charge one while riding the other and you can go all day. IIRC last time I was at Mountain Ridge I rode close to 60mi. We can't really ride Hatfield-McCoy on the electrics as you are just 'out there' for too long at a crack.

Battery technology like solid-state are coming and will probably double range but don't expect it anytime soon. Sodium based batteries will be cheaper (and charge faster) are likely to get here first (see CATL) but they don't offer increased range yet.

[Marylander]

Thanks for all the info! I think I'm just going to go ahead and get an ultrabee.

[juddspaintballs]

I might get one someday. The Freeride is also on the radar. The Light Bee was fun, but I wanted more of a dirt bike than it was.

At this point, the 701 can do "light" trail riding and all of the dual sporting. By "light" trail riding, I mean it's capable of doing it all, but the extra 100# of motor and frame and 2x+ the horsepower of a dirt bike make it difficult in the hairy stuff. I don't really need a trail bike to have a tag with the 701 sitting in my garage.

[Marylander]

Yeah, I've got a 17 690 enduro r (which the previous owner put 17" factory wheels on). I can't imagine having fun riding it off road. When JT had one of the KTM demo days I went and rode most of the available street legal models. The parking lot was on a slight angle. I couldn't even get the enduro r off the side stand there. While I know there are people much smaller than me taking adventure bikes off road I just don't see how that would be fun.

I'm in the process of converting my enduro r to an smc-r (which is way more involved than I realized when I started, so many parts are different ).