Thanks Joe. I'm glad we got your GPS data for your dot for the 2 1/2 laps we had good data for you. I will put more thought into being able to swich to the GPS Estimation during the race if the regular GPS stops working.

Thank you, I enjoy having the videos so when I am old I can look back. LOL I will not be at the race tomorrow, but I may go to the Bowling Green race in December if the weather is good. If I go, I will get to the starting line very early to pass out the GPS watches. I usually try to get them to as many racers in my class as possible.

Thanks Jeff! Who was it? I think I had just started the race then.

@@edfessler Oh sorry, 2:12:20

Cool Jeff. Yes, he was telling me he used to race a lot and do very well. I only put some of our conversation in the video, but we chatted for quite a while after that.

@@edfessler He is responsible for taking me from a C class racer to A class. I used to ride with him at Livingston just about every weekend. We went to Blackwater in 92, he took a bone stock CR250 and finished 7th overall.

Give up on the Freeride? I am not sure exactly what you mean by that, but I am getting the Stark Varg soon, and I am planning on using the Varg for racing going forward. I plan to keep my Freeride, as a spare bike and for friends and family to ride. I have been riding and racing motorcycles off and on for about 40 years. And before I got my Freeride it was always on gas bikes, and although I still have my 2005 KTM 300, it has been sitting for a very long time. I have very much enjoyed racing the Freeride, and I think it has been a great bike. I would recommend the Freeride for anyone who is tall enough to be able to touch the ground when sitting on it. I’m guessing maybe 5’8” or taller. You also need to be strong enough to pick it up if it falls since the bike is fairly heavy at 244 lbs, and the weight sits fairly high on the bike because of the battery position. I am very curious how this will compare with the 260 lb Varg. That is a lot of weight for a 150 lb guy like me to lift when I am worn out in a race! :-) The Freeride has been a great race bike for me. I have not modified the suspension, but I probably should have. The Suspension is pretty decent stock for small to medium size hits, but for anything big you need to slow up. I was ok with this for woods racing, since I would rather have something that soaks up the 10,000 small rocks and roots, rather than the 3 big hits on the course. If I was going to keep racing the Freeride, I would try to modify the current suspension more. The Cake/Sur-Ron type bikes are great for trail riding and less challenging racing, but if you are planning on doing serious racing on challenging and maybe muddy terrain, you would need something tougher like the Freeride or the Varg. I think the Freeride performs great for B/C level racers, but once you get to pushing it harder at more of an A racer level, it may be time for an upgrade. I feel I am at this point now. I think I am getting a little faster and that I need better suspension and power. More range is also a benefit. Keep in mind the faster you go and the harder you push any motorcycle, the more fuel (gas or electric) you will use. This of course can be more of an issue with an electric motorcycle than a gas motorcycle. Of course even if you are an A level racer, I feel it is perfectly ok just to race the Freeride to it’s ability and just enjoy the ride. There is no law that says we have to push ourselves or our motorcycles to the limit. :-) The Freeride has been pretty reliable. The biggest issue I had with it was when the water pump failed. The specific circumstances when mine went out also contributed to some confusion on my part (I won’t go into the details here). Just keep in mind that you will likely need to replace the water pump at some point. You may not even know that it has failed unless you push the motor very hard for a while up hills or fast straights to get it to overheat, which will cause it to shut down. You can turn it off and back on to reset it and go again. Other than that it has been pretty bulletproof. I had never ridden an electric Freeride before I bought mine. I looked at all the reviews and did all my research. There was one thing that stuck out for me that made me decide I should buy one. Many people just said “It’s Fun!”, and it is! That’s the reason we ride, right?

@@edfessler Basically I was just wondering if you were gonna replace the Freeride with the Varg, but great idea to keep it for friends and family to share the fun. Huge thanks for your very insightful and great answer, it’s very nice to get a little insight into someone’s background, in this case riding bikes of all sorts. Gives me a good hint of which direction I am going, or if I’m aiming in the right direction at least. The Freeride feels like a stable and sturdy thing to throw around in the woods and more, great that you have found it useful in stock without hassling with it that much. I guess suspension is one thing to tamper with, it’s also very personal. I’m a little bit taller and heavier than you and I also see this as a great way to get a hilarious exercise. That’s the best exercise. 😊 Once again thank you for some real life experience, I haven’t really seen that many reviews and you seem to have raced with it a lot and it appears to be able to take quite a beating. Good luck with your future endeavors and racing with the Varg. And Fun is the word that seems to come from every enduro rider out there! 😁

Thanks Chuck. It was very dusty in areas. It was a very fast trail overall, but not as many top speed sections as some of the other tracks. I do like tighter tracks because if you get in trouble at those high speeds very bad things can happen. I almost had a bad high speed crash at the end of lap 4. I recovered without crashing thank goodness. I feel like the slower speed tracks are safer. I was down a little below 30% battery for two laps, lets say down to 28%. So let say 72%/2 laps = 36% * 3.88 kwh battery = 1.4 kwh per lap. 1.4 kwh * 5 laps = 7 kwh. The Varg is 6.5 kwh. So unless the electric motor on the Varg is much more efficient or there is a big boost from the regenerative braking, it would be iffy. Also keep in mind if I was about 30 seconds faster in that race (Which I would be with the Varg because there would not have been a pit stop), the overall leader would not have lapped me at the end and I would have needed to do another 7.5 mile lap. So to answer your question: probably not. But don’t worry, I have a plan. :-) They bumped me to Jan 2024 for the Varg a long time ago, but I am feeling fairly confident now that I will have it by January. I will do a race video with it once I get used to it a bit and the weather is good. But I don’t like cold, so we will see how it goes. It usually takes me until Wednesday to produce and post a race from Sunday working on it mostly all day each day. This time it took me until Friday because I was still coding the Estimated GPS feature. I was not 100% sure it would actually work, so it took some time and was a bit stressful since I was trying to get the video posted ASAP. But I think it turned out great.

Thank you. No, I used 2 different GoPros. One normal on a chin mount, and the other mounted on the lower part of my Flack jacket. It did take some experimentation to get the angle right.