A fun ride in Antwerp’s urban jungle with Trevor Motorcycles

Flashback: these 2 guys showed me some electric dirt track designs in a coffee bar two years ago … Today, Jeroen-Vincent Nagels and Philippe Stella from Trevor Motorcycles invited THE PACK for a fun ride in the city of Antwerp with the new TREVOR DTRe Stella dirt tracker. Urban outfit ready? Check! Off we went to Antwerp to play in the urban jungle, completely according to the rules, of course …

Jeroen-Vincent: “Nothing goes smoothly in today’s world. And yet I’m proud to announce that our first optimized Trevor DTRe’s are “rolling off” the production line. There is still a small checklist open for the final tests for the European type approval, but that is only a matter of a few weeks. We distribute the motorbikes that are already roadworthy all over the world so that interested parties can test drive them. Last year we received a lot of pre-orders, from New Zealand, from the Philippines as well as from America.

Philippe: “In addition, our online sales have now also finally started, including financing options and leasing solutions, and we also have contractual partners in e.g. Norway, France and Germany.”

It was a warm reunion after these 2 years to meet each other again in real life. The Trevor team was so kind to charge two electric motorbikes for an introductory ride of a few hours. From a rough design to an (almost) homologated light electric vehicle in 2 years, il faut le faire, and that is also the merit of Saroléa Performance Technology, the Belgian company from Torsten and Bjorn Robbens who are responsible for the development of many technical parts.

Jeroen-Vincent: “A lot has happened since the official announcement of the Trevor DTRe. In the first half of last year we mainly tested a lot with our first race prototypes.?With the help of our factory rider Gille Leenknegt, among others, we collected a lot of data on the track of Lelystad but also Mettet, which we shared with our technical partner Saroléa Performance Technology.

A fun ride in Antwerp

After pushing the button, we smoothly hit the road … no different riding modi, shouted Jeroen at me when I took off, just one gear … The street legal version (11 kW) now has a front and rear brake at the wide steering wheel. The power was still limited to 80% on these pre-production versions for testing reasons but hey, we had enough torque to accelerate at the red light, ha ha. No, seriously, these kinds of (lightweight) motorbikes are very practical to move smoothly through the city center: no engine noise (you hear some – no-disturbing – chain noise but that’s a good safety element in the city, people noticed us), no smell, no motor heat.

I am a great fan of the minimalistic design from John McInnis (ex Alta Motors designer). Minimalistic does not mean “simple” here, because the Stella uses high-quality materials in a less-is-more design. When you step on the bike, you just feel that this motorcycle is something very apart. The choice to create a flat-tracker style motorbike was already a brave decision by the founders Jeroen-Vincent and Philippe. It would have been so much easier to develop a traditional looking motorcycle.

Speed bumps, potholes, narrow streets and unpaved little roads, the habitat of the DTRe STELLA … with the wide handlebars and a straight ideal riding position, you can drive over and through everything. Manoeuvre slowly or even surplace? No problem for this bike, this test ride was a fun ride. The bike felt spontaneous and after 100 meters it felt as if I had ridden with nothing else, very remarkable.

By the way, the category “flat tracker” is not official and therefore the Trevor DTRe Stella has been type-approved as an enduro (L3e-A1E). OK, you are not going to win an extreme enduro race but the motorcycle still offers a high level of off-road fun, proof is that flat tracker schools include the Stella as a teaching motorcycle.

Jeroen-Vincent: “Last summer, we went to Tarragona for a design run at Idiada and we were able to homologate the street version with an adapted racing prototype. Although we had a positive evaluation, we agreed with the team to make some structural improvements. As product director, I decided in consultation with our technical partner and my business partner to further develop the swingarm and subframe. This also fitted perfectly into the R&D file that we are running in consultation with VLAIO.”

Today, my test motorbike was already modified with these improvements: the swingarm has become wider and the rear damper has been moved to the left side. In addition, the cabling of the motor is now also located at the top, making it shorter and also better protected. Especially in off-road use, and therefore also on dirt track, I can see the benefits of all these improvements.?

Trevor Motorcycles is therefore excited to build the first production batch of 300 electric motorbikes and to deliver it later this year. The first 300 Trevors DTRe will all be street legal (except for a few dozen bikes for flat track schools) and immediately in the highest “Stella” version: an equipment with premium parts from brands such as AFAM, Beringer, Domino, Excel, Haan Wheels and especially Saroléa Performance Technology.

In combination with all these high-end performance parts and quality materials, you’ll get a “less-is-more” performance electric motorbike, produced in Europe. Price street legal version: 14.495,00 EUR (VAT included). More information at Trevor Motorcycles >

And yes, for those who doubted, we had license plates … :))