Alta SM and Supermoto Track Day Questions

[Mr. Antimatter]

Hi, everyone. I'm a 53 year old rider, and have been on two wheels since the late 1970's. I'm in the process of thinning the herd, and looking to the future when I can have a three-bike garage to fulfill all my riding needs. I wrote out the list of desirable attributes for bike #3, and they were as follows:

-Street Legal/Used as a commuter for 'light' days (40 mile round trip, 50/50 highway and surface streets).
-Light enough to load in the bed of my truck (under 300 lbs)
-Could be used to change riding position at my local short track/let my knees rest a bit from my supersport
-Not maintenance intensive (no big top-end or bottom-end rebuilds)
-Could run on ice (winter, frozen lakes, studded tires, that sort of nonsense)

Under the list, I wrote 'electric?', and here I am.

Specifics: my local track day provider runs a 1.1 mile track with tons of turns and only two short straights. It's mostly 2nd and 3rd gear on my 2013 ZX6R, topping out at 80-100 mph on the back straight. The Ninja does a great job for this, but by early afternoon my knees are telling me to switch to a different riding position. Having a 2nd bike that was a supermoto to switch to would be fun. An added bonus would be to relieve my cabin fever in the winter by doing some track days on some of the frozen lakes locally. The favorite bike for this is generally a lowered 450 dirt bike, with spiked tires and fenders (keeps frozen ice chunks from hitting other riders). I'm by no means a fast rider/racer, but I'd consider myself in the top 1/3 of riders at most track days, meaning I don't think I'd be able to extract full performance from the bike in 'overclocked' mode.

Has anyone done a track day with an Alta supermoto? I'm guessing I'll need to add some charging between sessions, although I'm not opposed to switching off between the ZX6R and the supermoto if necessary to let the battery regain some charge. The track day runs three 20 minute sessions per hour (slow-fast-supermoto), so I'd be running an hour combined time in the morning, a hour break for lunch, then 80 minutes total in the afternoon. The other thing I'd like the bike for is to have in the back of my truck when traveling with my wife, so I could nip off an do a 60-90 minute ride while she goes bird watching (her big hobby). Bonus points for having a bike that wouldn't disturb said birds when leaving or arriving back in camp.

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to hanging out and learning more about these bikes.

 

[Philip]

An Alta should be awesome for flat track and ice racing, but with 50hp I do not think you can hit 100+mph and be fast on straightaways. Also, there is no SMR yet, so you are limited to 42hp at this time. You might want to consider an MXR or EXR.

 

[Ireek]

I had the SM and really, really miss that bike!! Having said that, and a former road racer and track day whatever, I can say that if you're pretty fast and on the gas a lot, or volts, you'll probably get one session in the morning and one in the afternoon after charging, I think the SM should be able to use alternative fast charging like the MX/R for racing/trackday purposes. I'm a little older too and think that the Alta SM would be a great later day track day bike when the knees start to get a little stiff, look for around 83 mph pretty quick but after that, be hoping for brake markers...

 

[Bionicman]

Yeah gotta agree I think the E bike platform has its uses but as a Supermoto track bike..? Think I’d be looking for a Dino bike. Guess it depends on tracks your running. Kart track -maybe- For reference a ‘tight’ Superbike track of Barber Motorsports park had me looking for track exit after T5....on a hot aprilia!

I’d go ICE ~

YMMV

 

[Mr. Antimatter]

Thanks for the input, folks. If the capacity and recharge times aren't there yet, so be it. Once of the big challenges for this has been finding something that's street legal and has less maintenance requirements. The new Honda CRF450L has such short maintenance intervals that I know I'd hate myself for riding the thing to work. Ditto a street-legal WR450F. There are guys that do it, but I have life outside of oil changes and top-end rebuilds. The other contenders for this role have been a KTM 390 Duke or a WR250R/X. Back to the drawing board, I guess.

 

[Ireek]

It''s funny that yo mention the 390 Duke, since selling my Alta SM I actually picked one up for the short stints that I normally did on the Alta, for $4500 new, it was hard to pass up, it's turned out to be a surprisingly fun and capable little bike, BUT, I still prefer the electric for actual riding, the smoothness and instant power is hard to get out of your system once you've gotten used to it, that and I do not look forward to the valve inspection/adjustments coming up on that shim type valvetrain. I also have a 690 Enduro R, it's a pretty raw bike and sounds like the motor if full of marbles, supposed to be normal but man, it's noisy. I had a Honda 250 Rally, personally I'd steer clear of that and the CRF250L unless you just need a bike for very slow speeds, those bikes are anemic and I'm not a power hungry kind of guy. The Yamaha 250 is supposed to have a little more squirt than the honda but not much from what I gather, the Alta was almost scary fast when I'd crawl off my 250 Rally and immediately hopped on the Alta, the power difference is enormous. I have had lots of bikes and none have made me smile like the Alta did, I highly recommend one if you've been around the block a few times and am ready for a change.

 

[Mr. Antimatter]

Yeah, the CRF250L is more a camper bike. I was thinking of Honda's new street-legal 450, which has 600 mile oil changes and valve checks at 1,800 miles.

 

[Ireek]

Agreed, I bought the Rally thinking it would be quicker than it was, boy, was I surprised. The new EX might be one to think about too but the SM really does sound like it would suit your needs, you'd have to charge while at work, freeway speeds on it would not yield a 40 mile round trip for you I'm afraid, even if only half of the trip.

 

[Mr. Antimatter]

Hmm, we have the standard J1772 in our parking garage at work, but I gather that the SM only uses 120 volt. My boss would probably object to my parking my motorcycle in the middle of our office space.

 

[bluefxstc]

Hmm, we have the standard J1772 in our parking garage at work, but I gather that the SM only uses 120 volt. My boss would probably object to my parking my motorcycle in the middle of our office space.

With a firmware upgrade I believe the SM charger will take 240Vac so all you would need is an J1772 adapter and you could charge from the J1772 in the garage.

 

[Ireek]

I actually had the update done on mine before selling it, it was quick and easy (for them), I believe it also added a few little features like alerting when the 9v battery in the dashboard is running low and how the bike counts hours, I'm a tad fuzzy on these so someone here could probably elaborate more, I do know that the 240V firmware upgrade was done. I'm fairly certain that any new units sold would/should have this upgrade done before delivery.

 

[leeo45]

I believe it has been stated elsewhere that the protocol for the ALTA SM onboard charger is different than J1772 and they are not compatible even with the firmware updates.

Related to ice racing any of the ALTAs or any other e-bike, the power and battery performance will be very badly impacted by the cold conditions so you would need a way to warm everything up before riding. I suspect you would also need to insulate the battery while racing. If you could deal with the temperature issues, the huge traction of studded or spiked tires would be brilliant fun with the ALTA power !

 

[strider]

All of the tracks I ride at have 240V plugs somewhere (garages, RV parking spaces, etc) so you should be able to fast charge. If you're going to switch back and forth between your 600 you'll have no problem doing a full day.

IMO you should wait for the SMR. I would hope they would switch the charge port to J1772 during that update. That would allow people to use public charging stations and also there are a ton of J1772 EVSEs on the market so you can find one that can plug into whatever you have available.

 

[strider]

Related to ice racing any of the ALTAs or any other e-bike, the power and battery performance will be very badly impacted by the cold conditions so you would need a way to warm everything up before riding. I suspect you would also need to insulate the battery while racing. If you could deal with the temperature issues, the huge traction of studded or spiked tires would be brilliant fun with the ALTA power !

If you charge the battery before going out the battery will still be warm. Also, the act of riding will keep the battery warm. You'll only have a problem if you have a long drive with the bike in the back of a pickup or letting it sit overnight in the cold so the battery is cold-soaked.

 

[Philip]

there are a ton of J1772 EVSEs on the market

Oh no, another electric acronym.

EVSE - Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment control. It is a protocol to help keep you and your electric car safe while charging.

 

[Mr. Antimatter]

All of the tracks I ride at have 240V plugs somewhere (garages, RV parking spaces, etc) so you should be able to fast charge. If you're going to switch back and forth between your 600 you'll have no problem doing a full day.

IMO you should wait for the SMR. I would hope they would switch the charge port to J1772 during that update. That would allow people to use public charging stations and also there are a ton of J1772 EVSEs on the market so you can find one that can plug into whatever you have available.

The track in question is actually the driving range for a local community college, where they train truck and plow drivers, and some local police departments do their driving training. So, unfortunately, there isn't anything in the way of stalls or buildings that have electrical outlets. Anything I'd need I would have to bring. I already have a smaller generator that I've used for tire warmers in the past, but upgrading wouldn't be an issue as I'd love to have something I can run more stuff on at home when the power goes out. It does sound like I should wait for the SMR, though. I'm hoping the technology can catch up to my dreams.

 

[strider]

Oh no, another electric acronym.

EVSE - Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment control. It is a protocol to help keep you and your electric car safe while charging.

Sorry! Many people see those public charging pedestals and they call them "chargers" but that isn't true. I think it's more important for us to use the correct language in the Alta world where some of the bikes have offboard chargers while some have onboard chargers.

If you have an onboard charger (all electric cars, Alta SM) then you just need to supply AC power to the vehicle. You do that with an EVSE. It's essentially a fancy circuit breaker that also has signaling for the bike to tell the EVSE how much power it can handle, the EVSE tells the vehicle how much it can supply, and they negotiate a voltage and current (amps) to use. In the US, most EVSEs are J1772. Tesla has its own plug but it speaks J1772 (every car comes with a simply passive adapter to use J1772). You can buy a J1772 EVSE that's just a cable with a 120V or 240V plug on one end and J1772 on the other (there will be a bulge with the signaling logic/circuit breaker). Some, like the Tesla EVSE, allow you to put different plug adapters depending on what plugs you have available.

 

[Philip]

More acronyms and nomenclature.

SAE J1772 (IEC Type 1), also known as a "J plug", is a North American standard for electrical connectors for electric vehicles maintained by the SAE.

 

[bluefxstc]

I believe it has been stated elsewhere that the protocol for the ALTA SM onboard charger is different than J1772 and they are not compatible even with the firmware updates. !

Partially correct. You are correct that the Alta's will not interface to provide signals required to turn J1772 EVSE on, but aJ1772 adapter box will. If you have a J1772 adapter to turn the EVSE on, then it is just like plugging into any other wall outlet. If it is a level 1 EVSE then it will be 120 Vac and if it is a level 2 EVSE it will be 240Vac.

 

[2018SM]

Good morning. I am in Virginia and just purchased the SM from one of your other members and ran across this thread. I realize it is old and but it fit the thoughts that I was having about the bike. So far the bike has just sat in my garage because the DMVs are all closed and we are in covid lock down.

I am also not really sure how the forums work, so apologies if I am out of order somehow. I just wanted to jump in and say hi as I come up with more questions than answers. Thank you all for being here as I was very hesitant with buying a bike with what it seems the only support is this forum. Sam