EP#46 - Registered RFN Ares Endurance E-Moto TESTED!

We put the registered RFN Ares Endurance electric dirtbike to the test on a bunch of different terrains from commuting to trial riding and farm work. After nine months with this bike it is clear to us this bike is not a competition-spec dirtbike like the $20k job from Europe and Japan but a great trail bike, commuter and farm bike. Have a listen. 

Transcript

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Welcome to the ADB podcast where we talk all things dirt with your host, Mitch Lee. Alright, so many people are asking us about this RFN R's Endurance electric bike. Because I guess if you're looking at photos, it looks like a full-blown Enduro electric bike. Now everyone knows about the Starkvaag and and you know how dominant that's been and how powerful it is and all that kind of thing, but uh it's quite expensive and there have been some pretty alarming issues with that bike that we have seen from people who have owned them. So maybe that leaves space for bikes like the RFNR's endurance. Now we've tested RFNs before, but in the kids' bike range, and I think electric bikes in the kids space are okay and they work. Uh but I'm personally not convinced that electric bikes work in the adult range. Um Stark Varg, like I said, they've had issues trying to make two motos without battery swaps at a professional level level. Uh yeah, we've seen them do okay in Arena Cross, I guess, and some kind of some supercross, but you know, issues in the whoops and supercross, bits and pieces. It just has not been a uh you know a seller for me in that space. Um I think if you're a casual motocrosser maybe, but uh I think if you're a professional motocrosser, they don't have the battery life. And personally, if I'm going enduro riding on one, you know, yeah, you might get a two or three hour loop, but are you going to be able to go for three days through the high country, you've got to come home and charge it. Just doesn't make sense to me. That's the Stark VARG. The RFN R's Endurance is not a Stark VARG. I'll make that very clear. Uh we wanted to test it because people had asked us looking at it like it should be a replacement for their KDM, you know, 350 XCF. Uh so we kind of had a look at the specs, we're like, oh, I think it'd be a squeeze to call it a dedicated hardcore trail slash enduro bike. So we hit up RFN, said send us one, we want to do some testing. When it turned up, it was pretty clear it is not a hardcore enduro bike. This is a dual sport bike, I guess you'd call it. It's a combination of AG, trail, not enduro, and commuter. Uh but that's been awesome for us as we're testing it because we're actually using it to nick in and out of town here, we're using it on cattle, and we're also trowel riding it with the kids. If that gives you an idea of where the RFN stands. So, anyway, we tested it over a couple of the last six months, nearly nine months, in all those different uh scenarios, and like I said, it's very clear, this is not a bike to compare with a KDM 350, for example, like I guess you would a Stark Vag. It is its own beast, it's in this kind of hybrid range, but not a hybrid like you've seen them in the past, where they lean far more towards, say, a mountain bike. This is a full-blown dirt bike/slash motorcycle with everything that it has on it. It's just not designed to compete with a KDM 350 at the elite level. Anyway, we went after nine months of testing, we went and uh put together what we thought on it. Um, here's what we think of it across commuting, across trail riding, and a little bit of farm work. Uh before we get into this test though, I am going to thank Dunlop. Dunlop sponsored this show with the AT82 tire. It is a pretty cool tire because it's multi-directional. That means you can flick the tire around and get it chewing dirt on one side of the knob depending on the terrain, whether it's hard or soft pack. So if the terrain turns soft, you can turn the tire around and get better traction on the other side of the knob. And the same goes for hard pack. So it's pretty cool. Hayden Deegan's running them in Supercross, which is also a big uh tip of the hat to how good the tire is. We're testing a set as we speak to on one of our long-term test bikes. So stay tuned for that. Anyway, without further ado, here is where the RFNR's endurance actually fits in to our uh industry. Which discipline does it fit? So have a have a listen. Okay, we have tested this RFNR's endurance in all the three scenarios that we think it's designed for, which is farming, commuting, and of course trail riding. So I'm gonna tell you what I liked, what I didn't like, what it does well, where it could be improved, and if it suits any of those particular disciplines better than the other. I'm just gonna start from the front of the bike. Um 21-inch front wheel, which is awesome. Uh the hubs, you know, you you this is everything's built to a price point, and I feel like the hubs probably uh aren't gonna survive big logs and uh square edges if you go hard trail riding, you know, and you're competing with your mates on mid-capacity in Juro bikes. But big 21-inch front, so it's good for climbing over rocks and bits and pieces. Um the tire, it is a commuter tire. So if you're gonna buy this bike for a farm bike and maybe a little bit of trail riding with your kids, you're gonna need to get a proper knobby with some side knobs on it. Uh, and the front peak is skinny and thin, which looks really weird. But I didn't actually get any mud on my face, so I think you're never really taking it that gnarly, so I think it works. Uh, the fork, now the fork is soft, but despite it being soft, and like I said, this bike built to a price point. For some strange reason, the um adjustment works really well, so you can stiffen it up quite a bit, which makes it a little less uh springy or soft or spongy, I should say, and makes it actually feel quite firm in that first part of the stroke. Uh, and I found that came in handy when I was trail riding, but when I was commuting, or especially when I was just on the farm doing farm work, I wound it all the way off because I wanted the thing as soft as I could because I'm plodding along after cattle, so it's real slow and I wanted the softer suspension. So it has adjustment on the top, and I actually found that if once you wind all the compression uh and all the rebound off, it actually softens up quite a bit, which is good. Uh so we're gonna move along. So, front end wise, it's actually not too bad. We're gonna move along the actual feel of the bike, it's narrow, it's thin, it's thinner than any combustion petrol bike you're gonna get on. If you kind of look between here, there's no radiator shrouds to get around. So it's weird going from this bike back to a traditional uh combustion bike, they feel real fat, even the narrowest combustion bikes, but that's because this thing is so narrow. Um, so nice and narrow, feels comfortable, it's easy to throw around. Uh, it is physically smaller. I'm six foot two, uh, and I found to be a little bit cramped, probably similar to how you'd be on an ag bike. Um, think that kind of size in terms of seat height and field, it's a lot narrower, thinner, and lighter. Uh, but that being said, it is small and light, and you can really just pick it up and pull it where you want it. Um brakes. Now, this is probably one of two sticking points for me with this bike. Um, I'd love to see bigger brakes. I have absolutely ploughed through brakes on these things, they're not much bigger than a mountain bike brake, and I would be lucky to get 500 kilometers before I've got to replace them. And all that happens is you just wear the pad, wear the pad, wear the pad, and then you find you're pulling the lever and it's up against the handlebar. Um, and then also, even when you've got fresh pads in there, you gotta jump on the brakes to get it to stop. I had a few moments commuting, especially in the wet, where I was coming into a roundabout and I just wasn't thinking, I'm thinking on a bigger venture bike, and I've just grabbed the brakes and I'm kind of not stopping, not stopping. And so I've just like squeezed as hard as I could, and it didn't even lock up, it just slowly came to a stop. So I'd love to see bigger brakes on this bike. Now it's not a deal breaker, you can obviously you've just got to be mindful of it in traffic. That's probably the biggest one is you just don't want to you know rear-end a car because you're not thinking you'd grab the brakes at the last minute. Trail riding, you just gotta think about it and make make sure you ride the brake the whole time. Uh and for farm work, obviously, it's really no problem. We've we're pretty steep and hilly where we are, and I had no problems with these brakes in that stuff. But yes, I'd love to see bigger and more serious brakes on this bike. Uh, we're gonna talk about the power and the motor. Um, so you've really only got one power setting on this bike. You do have rocket mode, but that only lasts for a takeoff, it then drops itself out and you flick across to the standard rabbit mode. Uh, the standard rabbit mode is like all electric bikes, everyone has this question for me. Isn't it super fast? Isn't it wild? Yeah, it is. You snap the throttle on this thing, you're gonna loop out. Everyone goes to grab the clutch, realizes there isn't one in there, and they end up kind of whiskey throttling into the bush. Um, so it's got lots of great power off the start. I can like pop up and just slow wheelie it for as long as I want with my feet down because it's got so much you know up at the start, but um, it does tend to sign off. Now that's my biggest issue. So there were a few times commuting where I had to be on an 80km an hour road, and this thing tops out the current standard gearing at 75 or is it 76 exactly? And when an electric bike tops out, you get to that speed, and it's like it's the motor stop, it's like no, and it just won't like a combustion bike keep kind of rolling on downhill. I remember getting to some sections while commuting, thinking like, oh no, I've got a bus up my ass, it's an 80km an hour section, I'm coming to the downhill sweep, it'll just start rolling. Nope. They stay at 76 kilometers an hour down the hill. So final gearing will change that. You'll lose a little bit of that fun, like pop and wheelie uh mode that you see all the kids doing. Uh, but you would get probably 100 Ks an hour out of it with some final gearing changes. That's what I would recommend if you are commuting on it. Definitely do that because the 76 K's an hour is great. But if you're going anything under 80k's, but anytime you go 80 and over, you're going to be caught up in traffic. It's a little thin bike, and you're going to feel the trucks and the buses go blowing past you while you're in the left lane. So max is out at 76. Great power until then. There's power all the way through that rev range. It's it's it's an electric bike, so it's super linear, there's plenty there. You can use the back brake like a clutch, come up the logs, stop, pop, go again. But on the road, you are tapped out at 76 kilometers and now as it is standard. I'm gonna keep moving back through the bike, we're gonna get to the shock. Uh now the shock that's an interesting one. Again, the you have compression adjustment on it, and it made a world of difference. For farm work, soft as I could go, for enduro work, hard as I could go, and it did make a huge difference. I piloned my wife around a little bit through the bush to go on some dates, and we found that winding the compression on for both of us on there helped big time, just stop doing that you know, springy trampoline thing. Um, so the shock actually is pretty good. The only downside to the rear end is the hub and the swing arm are lightweight, and that's a good thing because it makes the bike super light and easy to pick up if you're a beginner. But you know, I feel like if I was to yank it hard enough and or whack a log with it, or you know, get off a little bit of single track and it kind of starts to step out and it's snap onto something, it feels like something might almost break. So the rear end, the shock is excellent, the hub and the swing are they are lighter weight, lighter, thinner, and they just feel a little bit like they've got a bit more flex than you what we would be used to on a$20,000 Enduro bike. So, again, this is a third of the price, uh, and it's not designed for that. RFN have never said we're gonna go about there and beat a KDM350, but just be mindful that if you think I'm gonna go trail riding all day on it with you know and go as hard as I can, you you've got a good chance of doing something really bad to that hub. Um okay, so that's front to rear. Uh, everything else about the bike I've really love. Grips is nice and soft, um, it's got a little power button so you can turn the bike on, and then you've got a little uh button here that it makes it go. Uh that's kind of handy so that you don't turn it on, and then someone comes up and says, Oh nice bike, mate, and they rip on the throttle and you loop out. Um and the only other thing I'd say too is the charging port is back underneath here, and we've found that I have pretty standard sized hands, maybe on the bigger size, and um I struggle to get the charging port in and out without getting two fingers onto it. Now I like that because it means in the mud and the dirt it's actually out of the way. We've had other electric bikes where we've had issues with the charging port getting full of mud and dirt and giving us a limp mode. This one's tucked away. You can see I've got the cap popped off it there, and so nothing actually gets catches up on it, which is handy. Um, so hard to get to but nice and away so it won't get mud on it. And then the other little thing was there's just a few, I think we got a pre-prodie model. This is kind of before they've finalised it, and there's just a few wires that probably should be better tucked away on this bike. Uh and then the last little thing is we've noticed some of the little hex heads have had some rust to them. We've had the bike for about six months, and it's the only ones that have done it, and I assume that's because it was maybe a bit of an afterthought with the rear rack here, which has come in handy to strap um stuff down to. Uh, but they're all minor things that can be fixed. So, what do I think about this bike and where does it fit in? I think for seven or eight thousand dollars, it's excellent value for money because that's regioed. So you can use this bike to commute into work. You'll get about we we were able to get from the northern beaches of Sydney into the city and back, and we got onto the turtle mode, which is when it's running out of battery, kind of as we were coming up to home. So, you're probably talking about somewhere between 70 and 80 kilometers is the max you're gonna get on this bike. Now that's because most of the road for me into the city is tapped. So the minute you get this thing up and humming as fast as it can, it just sucks the battery. So hopefully, if the commuting you're doing is mainly in and around your little town, it'll be way better on battery. But we got about 80 kilometers was the maximum we could get out of it before we started, before it went into the turtle mode and started Olympus home. Uh so as a commuter, if you're doing under 80k's, it's great, you can charge it every night, you've got to remember that. It's super narrow, super thin, sit up tire like on a dirt bike, so you can split traffic, you can see through traffic, so it would work as a commuter, it's silent. Now I know people like noise when they're commuting, uh, you know, so people cars can hear you coming. I'm neither here nor there. I thought it was really good as a commuter. At the lights, you can just kind of drag off anything, so at least you can get out in front. Just remember you've got 80 kilometers as range, that's all we could really get out of it, and you've got 76 kilometers an hour as your maximum speed. So if anyone's trying to take freeways into work that are 100, good luck. Then what is it like as a farm bike? This is probably where it's tricky. This is probably where it's best. It is the ultimate all-round, mainly farm bike. Do a little bit of trail riding with your kids so long as it's slow and you can just follow them and it's soft, and then use it to get into town to get the milk and bread and bits and pieces. As a farm bike, it's excellent. You can make that suspension nice and soft and cushy, it's light, uses no fuel, so you're not refueling bikes, it doesn't have a radiator for you to you know bust when you drop it to go and pick something up. Um, and yeah, it's super uh efficient. So as a farm bike, we've actually really liked it. There's no kick-starting it when you're you know stuck in a in the bottom of a creek or near a dam. Um, it's just turn it on and away you go. Um, we did notice chasing cattle though, they do kind of look at you funny because there's no noise. Unfortunately, it does have a horn, so you can kind of beat the cows to get them along, but we they did kind of look at us funny with an electric bike. Now, my son is six and he's been moving cattle for me on an electric bike since he was about three or four, so they're starting to get used to the no-noise bike, but it did kind of get them up, catch them off guard. But as a um as a farm bike, I think it'd be excellent. So that leads us down to our last one, which is trail riding. Like I said earlier, you you're not gonna keep up with a 350, you're not gonna keep up with a full-blown Enduro bike. It's just you know, if you did, there won't be much left of the bike because you're just gonna have to go too fast, and the parts on it are not engineered and designed to go that fast and smash into things that hard. So if you're gonna trail rid on it, it's the kind of trail riding you do behind your kids who are on 110s, on you know, 50s, on 140s, 150s trail bikes. So I think TTR, KLX, uh even DRZ 125, DRZ, uh the DR250, uh, those kind of bikes would would be good to go trail riding with your family on. Now it could be the kind of bike that maybe you buy for the farm to do the ag work, you then buy so your missus can go trail riding because it'd be great, it's nice and low seat. You can't adjust the power, so hopefully, someone who's not familiar with the whiskey throttle doesn't get in trouble because it is aggressive. Um but it'd be good for for maybe people who are less confident because it's lower to the ground, so they could trail ride on the weekend, and then you could also use it to commute.