Speedkills
Well-known member
- Likes
- 163
- Location
- Nederland, CO
I took my EXR to metcalf motorcycle park today (near San Jose, CA) and was pleased and surprised to see Alta’s all over. Felt like 1/3rd of the bikes there were Altas due to me, an SM rider (with off-road wheels from a KTM) and a bunch of Alta employees out riding. I was a bit worried at first after having stayed the previous 3 nights in various hotels, none of which had a 110v or 220v outlet available to plug my charger into (really Alta, why no option to have a J1772 adapter like Zero does?) but lucked out as once I got to Metcalf one of the park rangers was nice enough to let me plug into their 110v and charge for a bit.
My first impressions are from a background of riding everything under the sun for the past 20 years, but only an Alta SM for the past year.
Random thoughts:
- The front brakes are so weak...and spongy. A bit weaker I expected, but my SM has great feel at the lever, my EXR is really mushy, pulled with all four fingers won’t even do a stoppie. Maybe the dealer didn’t bleed the brakes properly on assembly, will need to investigate another day. The feel did improve over the day, but I may still end up wanting to go to a bigger front disc if I can find one.
- The rear brake is a joke, but luckily I expected that based on the reviews of anyone who has ridden an Alta off road ever so it didn’t catch me off guard and I will be putting the left hand rear brake on. I meant to ask the Alta guys what the deal was there, maybe one of their test riders likes it that way or something? I was pretty much unable to get that nice chattering chain sound you get when you are properly braking for a corner and backing the rear end in like I can on any other bike I have ridden, not sure if part is due to the low flywheel effect of the engine letting the rear tire lock up too quickly, or if it just comes down to a the rear brake lacking any modulation at all.
- It felt strange having constant regen in every map. On my SM lower performance maps also have lower regen, which is nice as it kind of emulates switching engine sizes, I think of map 1 a bit like a 125 two-stroke, map 4 a bit like a 250 four-stroke.
- The footpegs are crazy low. I’ll be looking for a set of taller pegs ASAP. Plug stiffer springs, I’ve made a few too many trips to the dessert bar and the stock springs are for a rider about 50lbs smaller than me easy. Combine that with the low footpegs and watch those toes.
- The power is great as we all know, really nice always having the power needed for any situations with no clutch worries. Reminded me of the feeling of riding my old CR500 with a Rekluse in a way, just control the height of the front tire with the throttle when lofting it over rocks and up roots.
- I didn’t love any of the maps, but found myself in 3-4 the most until I got tired, then 1. I found myself really wishing map 1 had less regen so I could have more of that flown feeling you get on a small two stroke. The other maps I wanted more flywheel effect from, I completely understand why Tremaine put a heavier flywheel on his bike now.
- Traction control would be pretty helpful here, when the rear wheel spun up, it spun up much more quickly than an ICE bike and without a clutch to pull bringing it back in isn’t quite as easy, but nothing serious enough to cause any crashes at the pace I was riding today. As I understand it they have accellerometers on board, and can tell wheel speed, why not use these two facts to slow rear wheel acceleration in one of the maps when the wheel is spinning faster than the bike is accelerating? Best guess they just don’t have the programmer time right now maybe.
- The bike feels great when throwing it back and forth on single track, changes directions like some of my favorite 210lb 125cc two strokes due to lack of rotating mass.
- It’s a bit unstable in the rocks for the same reason, feels closer to a 125cc two stroke in rocks beds and lacks the stability you would expect of a bigger four stroke bike. I need to look into a steering damper.
I got about an hour of easy riding in for half a charge, looks like I will be able to go 2 hours or so, maybe if I put one of those sweet MotoZ trialsish rear tires on and ease up. On the rear wheel spin I can do a little better? Not sure how Alta is saying anyone is going to get 4 hours of trail riding and then post a video of Tremaine killing the battery in 45 minutes.
Best part was meeting another Alta rider who showed me around Metcalf on my first visit there. I’ll definitely try to hook up with him again to ride Hollister in a few weeks, he kept a great pace for me and it was nice not worrying about range since I knew we both had the same range
TLDR: Powerband is out of this world good, lack of J1772 adapter makes charging a pain if you don’t have a generator with you, rear wheel acceleration/deceleration feel and control could use some improvement, can’t comment on suspension as it’s not at all setup for my weight.
My first impressions are from a background of riding everything under the sun for the past 20 years, but only an Alta SM for the past year.
Random thoughts:
- The front brakes are so weak...and spongy. A bit weaker I expected, but my SM has great feel at the lever, my EXR is really mushy, pulled with all four fingers won’t even do a stoppie. Maybe the dealer didn’t bleed the brakes properly on assembly, will need to investigate another day. The feel did improve over the day, but I may still end up wanting to go to a bigger front disc if I can find one.
- The rear brake is a joke, but luckily I expected that based on the reviews of anyone who has ridden an Alta off road ever so it didn’t catch me off guard and I will be putting the left hand rear brake on. I meant to ask the Alta guys what the deal was there, maybe one of their test riders likes it that way or something? I was pretty much unable to get that nice chattering chain sound you get when you are properly braking for a corner and backing the rear end in like I can on any other bike I have ridden, not sure if part is due to the low flywheel effect of the engine letting the rear tire lock up too quickly, or if it just comes down to a the rear brake lacking any modulation at all.
- It felt strange having constant regen in every map. On my SM lower performance maps also have lower regen, which is nice as it kind of emulates switching engine sizes, I think of map 1 a bit like a 125 two-stroke, map 4 a bit like a 250 four-stroke.
- The footpegs are crazy low. I’ll be looking for a set of taller pegs ASAP. Plug stiffer springs, I’ve made a few too many trips to the dessert bar and the stock springs are for a rider about 50lbs smaller than me easy. Combine that with the low footpegs and watch those toes.
- The power is great as we all know, really nice always having the power needed for any situations with no clutch worries. Reminded me of the feeling of riding my old CR500 with a Rekluse in a way, just control the height of the front tire with the throttle when lofting it over rocks and up roots.
- I didn’t love any of the maps, but found myself in 3-4 the most until I got tired, then 1. I found myself really wishing map 1 had less regen so I could have more of that flown feeling you get on a small two stroke. The other maps I wanted more flywheel effect from, I completely understand why Tremaine put a heavier flywheel on his bike now.
- Traction control would be pretty helpful here, when the rear wheel spun up, it spun up much more quickly than an ICE bike and without a clutch to pull bringing it back in isn’t quite as easy, but nothing serious enough to cause any crashes at the pace I was riding today. As I understand it they have accellerometers on board, and can tell wheel speed, why not use these two facts to slow rear wheel acceleration in one of the maps when the wheel is spinning faster than the bike is accelerating? Best guess they just don’t have the programmer time right now maybe.
- The bike feels great when throwing it back and forth on single track, changes directions like some of my favorite 210lb 125cc two strokes due to lack of rotating mass.
- It’s a bit unstable in the rocks for the same reason, feels closer to a 125cc two stroke in rocks beds and lacks the stability you would expect of a bigger four stroke bike. I need to look into a steering damper.
I got about an hour of easy riding in for half a charge, looks like I will be able to go 2 hours or so, maybe if I put one of those sweet MotoZ trialsish rear tires on and ease up. On the rear wheel spin I can do a little better? Not sure how Alta is saying anyone is going to get 4 hours of trail riding and then post a video of Tremaine killing the battery in 45 minutes.
Best part was meeting another Alta rider who showed me around Metcalf on my first visit there. I’ll definitely try to hook up with him again to ride Hollister in a few weeks, he kept a great pace for me and it was nice not worrying about range since I knew we both had the same range
TLDR: Powerband is out of this world good, lack of J1772 adapter makes charging a pain if you don’t have a generator with you, rear wheel acceleration/deceleration feel and control could use some improvement, can’t comment on suspension as it’s not at all setup for my weight.
