Pedro Bianchi Prata has been developing his electric bike program for over a year with the goal of competing in the 2027 Dakar Rally’s Mission 1000. The effort took another major step when he successfully completed the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid Portugal for the second year in a row.

Unlike in 2025, when the e-bike was simply a Moeve-branded model, Bianchi had picked up a major partner in hard enduro manufacturer STRiX for the project. The new STRiX ET02 comes with strengthened suspension and a new battery courtesy of EDMTECH.

Of course, using batteries in extremely wet and muddy conditions was always bound to be difficult. Bianchi could attest to this when he lost two batteries in Stage 2. Two days later, the battery ran dry altogether and caused him to come to a stop; Alexis Varagne towed him to the finish. He also occasionally ran into issues when swapping the battery out like a significant delay during Stage 3.

When the batteries did comply, the STRiX worked as he hoped. In the 45-rider field, Bianchi often finished in the late twenties and early thirties, which he was pleased about given an e-bike obviously has its disadvantages compared to usual bikes. Despite losing the batties, Stage 2 saw his best outing when he placed 26th overall.

The e-bike was separated into its own Experimental category, which wasn’t included in the final overall results. Regardless, his final time of 16 hours, 15 minutes, and 15 seconds would’ve ranked him 31st overall. By comparison, he was 40th at the 2025 Rally-Raid Portugal.

“Mission accomplished. The aim was to test things, try out new ideas, push the bike to its limits, and that’s exactly what we did,” said Bianchi. “It wasn’t easy, it took many days of hard work, both for me and for the many people behind this project.

“Thanks to STRiX, who came here to understand the scale of this project and just how far we want to take this bike. Thanks to EDMTECH, who are starting to develop the batteries, which will allow us to have greater range in the next race, and congratulations to the ACP for putting on an excellent race, very well organized as always.”

While the Rally-Raid Portugal is Bianchi’s lone planned W2RC start, he plans to bring the e-bike to other races in his home country.

“Now, all I want is to go home. I’m already missing my wife and son terribly,” he remarked.

Results

Finish	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time	Margin
1	31	17	Pedro Bianchi Prata	Offroad Center Bianchi Prata	16:15:15	Leader

Stage winners

Stage	Overall	Rider	Total Time
Prologue	29	Pedro Bianchi Prata	3:32.4
Stage 1	30	Pedro Bianchi Prata	2:13:16
Stage 2	26	Pedro Bianchi Prata	3:43:46
Stage 3	34	Pedro Bianchi Prata	3:47:56
Stage 4	27	Pedro Bianchi Prata	3:39:55
Stage 5	30	Pedro Bianchi Prata	1:22:09

Featured image credit: Offroad Center Bianchi Prata