Posts
1106
Joined
10/21/2012
Location
Cypress, TX
US
Edited Date/Time
4/19/2018 10:04pm
I have said this before and will say it again. The most intelligent conversations on the internet about Alta can be found right here on Vital. Bravo gentleman!
I'm a Regional Sales Manager for Alta and just wanted to clear up a couple of things that some have voiced concern on here.
Weight - Its 259lbs on the 2018 MXR. When I'm conducting demo rides, I asked riders when they get off the bike what the weight of the bike feels like. Most of them say between a 125-250. This is mostly because there is no rotating engine mass. Alta has done some research on the rotating mass of a 4 stroke engine. The results were that the rotating mass of a 450 is equivalent to around 60lbs. You feel that rotating mass mainly when you are leaning the bike in a rut or on a berm. With no rotating mass of an engine, the Alta "feels" a lot lighter when you ride it and specially when hitting a turn. Where you will notice the 259lbs of an Alta is if you lift it onto a bike stand.
Range - Range is probably the biggest concern of most riders. The way I explain it is that the battery is similar to a tank of gas. The range will depend on who is riding it and where. If you have a top pro rider with a track like Glen Helen that has a lot of 4th and 5th gear straight aways and massive uphills, he might only get 30 minutes out of a charge. Then on the other end of the spectrum, a slower vet rider on tight single track could get 4-5 hours out of a charge. For me, I'm an older (56) vet A rider and at the local tracks in the Houston area, I can get about an hour and a half out of a full charge. However, an average "moto" for me is 4-7 laps, usually around 10-15 minutes. When I come in from a ride I plug the bike into a 110V plug that my local tracks have. I usually take 30 minutes to an hour between rides. The bike doesn't always charge back to 100%, but it gets close. Of course if you don't have access to an outlet, you will need to have a generator. I just had an inverter installed in my Sprinter, so now I will be able to charge on 220V for an even quicker charge.
On a side note. Dustin Winter is a super fast up and coming pro rider hitting the major amateur races right now and training for Loretta's. He rode the bike for the first time last night at 3 Palms and within two laps he was flying and commented when he got off that he was jumping gaps that he couldn't do on his 250F. He was concerned about the lack of noise, because he has tried to ride with ear plugs on his 250F and couldn't. He said the lack on noise was not an issue at all. He loved the bike!
I have left this offer out there before and its still stands. I live in Houston and frequent the local tracks in the area when I'm in town. I can also be found at other tracks throughout Texas. Almost every Alta dealer has demo's and you can contact them to set up a test ride, however feel free to contact me anytime if you would like to test ride one of my demo's.
Larry Hughes
281.541.2767
I'm a Regional Sales Manager for Alta and just wanted to clear up a couple of things that some have voiced concern on here.
Weight - Its 259lbs on the 2018 MXR. When I'm conducting demo rides, I asked riders when they get off the bike what the weight of the bike feels like. Most of them say between a 125-250. This is mostly because there is no rotating engine mass. Alta has done some research on the rotating mass of a 4 stroke engine. The results were that the rotating mass of a 450 is equivalent to around 60lbs. You feel that rotating mass mainly when you are leaning the bike in a rut or on a berm. With no rotating mass of an engine, the Alta "feels" a lot lighter when you ride it and specially when hitting a turn. Where you will notice the 259lbs of an Alta is if you lift it onto a bike stand.
Range - Range is probably the biggest concern of most riders. The way I explain it is that the battery is similar to a tank of gas. The range will depend on who is riding it and where. If you have a top pro rider with a track like Glen Helen that has a lot of 4th and 5th gear straight aways and massive uphills, he might only get 30 minutes out of a charge. Then on the other end of the spectrum, a slower vet rider on tight single track could get 4-5 hours out of a charge. For me, I'm an older (56) vet A rider and at the local tracks in the Houston area, I can get about an hour and a half out of a full charge. However, an average "moto" for me is 4-7 laps, usually around 10-15 minutes. When I come in from a ride I plug the bike into a 110V plug that my local tracks have. I usually take 30 minutes to an hour between rides. The bike doesn't always charge back to 100%, but it gets close. Of course if you don't have access to an outlet, you will need to have a generator. I just had an inverter installed in my Sprinter, so now I will be able to charge on 220V for an even quicker charge.
On a side note. Dustin Winter is a super fast up and coming pro rider hitting the major amateur races right now and training for Loretta's. He rode the bike for the first time last night at 3 Palms and within two laps he was flying and commented when he got off that he was jumping gaps that he couldn't do on his 250F. He was concerned about the lack of noise, because he has tried to ride with ear plugs on his 250F and couldn't. He said the lack on noise was not an issue at all. He loved the bike!
I have left this offer out there before and its still stands. I live in Houston and frequent the local tracks in the area when I'm in town. I can also be found at other tracks throughout Texas. Almost every Alta dealer has demo's and you can contact them to set up a test ride, however feel free to contact me anytime if you would like to test ride one of my demo's.
Larry Hughes
281.541.2767
Seems legit!
But what misconceptions did you just clear up? It’s still 259 lbs and we are all up to speed on rotating mass, and the bike has a battery that drains at different speeds depending on rider ability.
Seems to me you have a pretty creative way to get demo rides scheduled here.....
The Shop
An Alta Has the rotating mass of the Electric Motor (and whatever rotating shafts / parts there are in getting drive to the counter shaft sprocket) , as against the (hell of a lot more) rotating mass of extra shafts like Cam Shafts ( even the Cam Chain) in 4ts, And, with some engines, separate Balance Shafts. And Clutches / any extra shafts relating to a gearbox, of course.
And those differences, certainly can make a heck of a difference in feel of a bike.
I'm not a hater here - I really can see an Alta ( or E Bike of the same, or higher level) in my future, and I easily accept that the Considerably less Rotating Mass and the total lack of Reciprocating Mass of an Alta Will make the bike much more 'flickable' than an ICE bike of the same weight. And even a ICE bike that is Substantially lighter than the Alta.
If I were travelling to the USA this year (still might be able to swing it), I'd be contacting this fellow / Alta to try to get a Demo ride on an Alta. It would be the perfect bike for my local riding.
Hammer 663s
The problem is a lot (not all of them) Baby Boomer are retiring and move away from city to have a quieter life... Now they are complaining about every possible noise or stuff that could impact heir super precious and most important thing in life... their life. They complain about the smell of farming, the trains that pass into town (the trains was there a long time ago), to build a new pipeline (but they need crude oil to feed heir massive SUV so more trains pass in town), the mountain bike chains noise because they wan to walk in the wood alone... Weird thing is Quebec is maybe as big as 25% of the USA but with only 8 millions people and we can't stand each other...
sorry I hijacked the post...
Just don’t spin your sales pitch as info BRO....
Pit Row
Right now, a current motocross bike is essentially a $8-10K toy that you can't do much else with. With electric, I could see the bikes evolving to have a plug in light kit component so that they could also be used on the street (riders would want a spare set of wheels to swap out of course). If a race bike could also serve as a commuter - it seems like that opens up the market quite a bit, and it also makes it easier for the masses to justify the purchase. Want to race this weekend? Take off the lights, pop on the right tires and go for it.
Tie that in with quiet machines so that tracks can be moved closer to cities, and decreased maintenance compared to ICE, and it seems like this combination could be a game changer for the entire sport.
Will I miss my clutch and shifter? Probably. But at the same time, I feel like it's more important for the sport to evolve and flourish. I'm very interested, and hopeful, in seeing where this all leads!
Now, the centrifical force of a traditional gas engine goes into the chassis in a vertical manner... With brushless, the motor, depending the way mounted and direction of rotation, will typically transfer load to the chassis in a horizon manner.... You could run the motor one way to help keep the front end on the ground, or u could reverse it to load the rear instead...
U lost me after the first point.. so I won't argue the second...
Also, have you guys read any of the comments on Alta’s facebook posts? It’s 100x worse than Vital!
The bikes themselves are fantastic but I worry about the sport of we allow electric bikes mix with valved bikes. They're a separate beast and deserve their own class. We'll only kill the sport further if we allow one type of bike to squish the other.
I can't only hope the powers that be are taking not of how motogp and f1 are handling the electric rage.
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