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One of the delights of New Zealand is that the riding is amazing. One of the downsides of New Zealand is that postage costs are ridiculous. Stark wanted $1 for each of the copper washers that you replace with each gear oil change. That's reasonable. But the postage was $53. That's not. Hence...

The API oil specifications are tight enough that there's no meaningful difference in performance between the brands, no matter how much the oil companies spend on advertising to convince us that that oil is special. I used whichever 75W-90 GL-5 oil came in the smallest size, coz a litre should...

While we're talking about Stark gearbox oil, does it need GL-4 or GL-5 oil? GL-5 is better for high wear situations like hypoid gears but is more corrosive to yellow metals. GL-4 suits spur gears but is less common these days - my local shop had none. I checked with Stark support. Their answer...

People don't realise how brutal pressure washers are - 60 psi is the same as 45 metres underwater. That's going to challenge any waterproofing. If you can trust yourself to only spray the bike away from the seals then go for it but a garden hose and brush works for me with much lower risk.

Yeah, batteries keep getting better and bikes will get lighter for a given range and power. So what's that going to look like? I mostly ride trails, the more technical the better. I don't want the equivalent of a 450 race bike, I want a 250 enduro bike and as light as possible. And then...

Stark have lost income by making a more reliable bike. We're not going to be buying all the high-markup wear items that a petrol engine needs. So I am ok with a sub, coz it'll still be a cheaper bike per hour or kilometre.

Yeah, the politics of dirt bikes and land access seems to quickly devolve into people yelling at each other. I'm hoping we can avoid that here. I'm in NZ and we don't have the history of motorised access to public land that the US has. Our access is already pretty limited. I'm expecting that...

I feel this too and I could go on a rant about consumer price inflation and how it's higher than the official stats say but this is a dirt bike forum not an econometrics one. But... I bet you pay more than $14 a month on petrol. So you're saving on that. Stark aren't going to be making money...

Battery degradation depends very much on how hard the cells are pushed and specifically on the minimum Voltage under load and the maximum under charge. My Sur-Ron with a stock battery has seen 250 cycles and 5,000 km over four years. It's lost at least 20% capacity. I've not been that hard on...

You'd have to handle the axial load on the gears, so it's not a straight-forward swap.

I guess the straight-cut gears explain the whining noise. My ears kind of wish they've gone for helical although my wallet would probably disagree.

And final delivery of the electric Landie, 3000 km from Wales to Sweden: Customer is Vintage Volts. They convert classic cars into electrics. A wagon to carry and charge four Starks fits pretty nicely into that.

Update on the Defender 130 build for Stark, or at least Stark in Sweden. 170 kWh of batteries, water-cooled for 150 kW charging, power outputs for charging two Stark's at once, and an airline for filling the bike tyres.

I'm guessing that you can just set the engine breaking very low to give the effect of a slipper clutch.

Seems like there's some easy fixes there. I'll likely be getting a wider kickstand foot as the ground is mush around here. It's no drama to get a taller foot.

I don't think Stark have said how rapidly they want to ramp up maufacturing. Their capacity is going up in steps. It took a few months for the step from one bike per month to ten, then a few more months for the step from ten to a hundred. They're going to have to get to making thousands per...

Apparently 150 bikes sent out in June, 200 sent in this month, more for August. That's according to someone expecting their bike in August. Stark rang him to confirm his order and these numbers came out in the discussion. Many of those bikes will still be in transit though. I'm in NZ with a...

There's a heap of bikes out there now. Not everyone posts all their riding to the internet.

No new info but he's pretty stoked.

Yeah. I want enough range that I am done when I get back to the van.