Watch electric Sur Ron race a 5x as powerful gas dirt bike and… place your bets

Electric dirt bikes and trail bikes are a great option for recreational riders that want to head off-road and leave noisy, polluting gas bikes behind. But how do they fare when it comes to competing head-to-head with gas bikes? Now we can see it play out as Tucker Neary raced a Sur Ron X electric trail bike against a KTM Factory Edition 250 SX-F.

Tucker Neary runs the YouTube channel Electric Cycle Rider, where he frequently shows off the Sur Ron electric trail bike.

We last caught up with him when he used the Sur Ron to win a Hare Scramble race, despite running out of battery a few turns before the end of the course.

Tucker had developed such a lead that he was able to push the bike the rest of the way and still take first place in his category.

But to up the ante, he decided to test the Sur Ron X electric bike against a worthy candidate: the KTM Factory Edition 250 SX-F. He put both bikes up against each other on a twisty Florida trail in order to see which would come out on top, then emailed us his video and some background about his testing setup, which included a helmet-mounted GPS unit for accurate lap tracking.

Compared to the 6kW (8hp) motor in the Sur Ron X, the gas-powered KTM puts out around 39hp. That’s around 5x the power of the Sur Ron.

So which one will win in a time trial race? Place your bet and then watch the video below to find out.

The KTM edges out the Sur Ron X

Yep, the KTM won. With Tucker’s best KTM lap of 3 minutes and 47 seconds, he managed to beat the Sur Ron X’s best lap time of 4 minutes and 2 seconds.

But just 15 seconds separated the two bikes, which is actually quite impressive. By all accounts, the KTM should have destroyed the Sur Ron X. Despite the Sur Ron’s capabilities, its power level puts it closer to the 50cc equivalent category, compared to the larger 250cc KTM Factory Edition 250 SX-F.

However, the Sur Ron X also comes in at almost half the weight of the KTM, helping it remain more agile and maneuverable.

That low weight also helps keep boost its power to weight ratio and improve acceleration time.

In all fairness, the track itself was almost entirely flat, and that certainly played as an advantage to the Sur Ron X. While 6kW of power is fun on the street, climbing hills in dirt can bog down the relatively small motor.

But Sur Ron’s manufacturer may still have the last laugh after all. A new electric dirt bike model known as the Sur Ron Storm Bee is set to debut this year, and offers a true 250cc equivalent bike putting out around 22kW (29hp).

Let’s hope that Tucker can get his hands on a Storm Bee and stage a rematch. Now, that’s a race I’d love to see!

Sur Ron Storm Bee electric dirt bike