Ty Tremaine and Lyndon Poskitt to race in the Erzberg Rodeo

[Fod]

I don’t know about factory edition but you might be able to pick up two MXRs up in the UK pretty cheap. ( two soon? )

Too soon?!?!? Yes! Too funny never the less!

 

[OneLapper]

Finally found a video clip of Ty on the Alta. 1:23 into Ezberg Rodeo 2018 | Toughest Hard Enduro by Jaume Soler Movies. Link coming.....

Here it is

 

[Philip]

Ty is there at 1:23 to 1:28, looking good. That's it, just 5 seconds.

I think the guy right after him was Cody Webb, who broke his foot when he crashed there.

Skip the 5-minute KTM electric race in the middle. Now we know who pays the bills there.

 

[Fog 25]

Ty is there at 1:23 to 1:28, looking good. That's it, just 5 seconds.

I think the guy right after him was Cody Webb, who broke his foot when he crashed there.

Skip the 5-minute KTM electric race in the middle. Now we know who pays the bills there.

KTM electric race on my video was at 10:15 to 11:35 mark. I believe KTM has been doing these exhibition Free Ride races for a few years now.

 

[Philip]

A few interesting details in this article:

Alta Motors Makes History at the Erzberg Rodeo
Despite numerous challenges and setbacks, Alta Factory Racing team riders, Ty Tremaine and Lyndon Poskitt, both qualified for the main event.

​

Alta Motors, the leader in performance electric motorcycles, made two-wheel history as the first electric motorcycle factory race team to qualify for the Erzberg Rodeo. Ty Tremaine and Lyndon Poskitt rode the next generation of Alta’s popular off-road Redshift against gas-bike competitors. By qualifying 48th and 113th for the Erzberg Rodeo, Alta proved that its electric motorcycles are fully capable of competing at the most demanding level and qualified on the front row.



Lyndon Poskitt was unable to race the main event because his motorcycles were stolen a few days prior to the event. He did qualify using his teammate's race bike.

Rookie to Erzberg, Alta had a lot to learn in attempting to compete in the hardest enduro in the world. While en route to the event, one of the team’s race vans was burglarized and the culprits made off with two bikes and a significant amount of race equipment. Despite this major setback, the team stayed the course and still fielded both riders in the Prologue by sharing the two bikes originally set up for Ty. With no provision for pre-running the event, Alta’s critical first run in the Prologue qualifying event disappointed the team with an overheated motorcycle and improper gearing. Even with these adverse problems, Ty placed 43rd out of a field of 1,500 competitors on the first day. On the second, Ty and Lyndon fared much better with Ty moving up for a 35th place finish against the best hard enduro riders in the world.

Although Lyndon qualified for the main, he did not compete due to the stolen motorcycles and equipment. Unfamiliar with the starting procedure, Ty had a poor start off the line and initially trailed the pack, but quickly exploited the Alta Redshift’s performance and gained spots back, placing him amongst the top 20. But the Iron Mountain proved to be as treacherous as its reputation. With an off-course misstep during the confusing forest section and the hard charge to make up for the starting line glitch, Ty fell short of the planned battery swap site and had to retire.



Ty Tremaine did well in qualifications but was unable to make his battery swap checkpoint, to continue through the main event.

“I was totally caught off guard at race start, but the Alta worked great and I made up a lot of spots quickly. The bike climbed super well and I got right back into it. I followed Paul Bolton, learned from his lines, and at one point I actually passed Graham Jarvis. The woods were the biggest surprise for me. They were super tricky and I found myself off course for a bit. I was disappointed when I ran out of power just before our planned battery swap point at Machine,” commented Ty Tremaine. “I learned a lot about the Iron Mountain and I know that I am ready for this level and so is the bike.”

“It’s disappointing that our planned battery swap strategy came up short at our first Erzberg Rodeo. We’ve learned a lot about the course and collected the required data to plan for next year’s swap strategy and optimize the software on the Alta Redshift,” said Alta Motors Chief Technical Officer and co-founder, Derek Dorresteyn. “We choose to race the hardest possible race, so we can continue to develop the most intuitive, capable motorcycle ever made. We built the Redshift to compete head-to-head with the best gas bikes in the most brutal environments. Today we did that, there is nothing but upside for electric motorcycles in professional racing.”

Source: Adventuremotorcycle.com

 

[Mark911]

Maybe it's just me (you think?), but I'd suggest that Alta first learn how to walk before they choose to run with the big dogs. I think there's plenty of evidence that shows the bikes is already capable of competing with the best gas bikes available. I don't think anyone doubts it's ability to do anything that a (insert name of favorite MX bike) can do for 15 minutes. And that's the rub. The only serious objection/concern for 99% of the potential buyers is the battery pack. It doesn't matter if the concern is overheating the pack during a short high intensity moto or running out of juice on a leisurely trail ride. The concern is the pack!

So what's the point of entering a race where the PLAN is to do multiple battery pack swap outs? It just reinforces the stigma associated with the bike! Particularly when during the race they run out of juice.

If it was to show what the bike is capable of (miles/conditions) WITH multiple pack changeouts then that would be a good data point for some. However, it doesn't translate to a typical owner/buyer since Alta doesn't sell spare packs, so again, what's the point if packs are only available to factory bikes.

I'm very curious to what Alta learned (about the bike) that they didn't already know. To me, it just highlighted what we all already know; that the bike is great but the stock battery pack is the weak link. I don't think finishing 100 ERs with swaps of the stock pack would change that.

 

[Elite Motorsports]

I feel like the result at Erzberg is not getting the respect that it deserves! Out of 500 riders who entered, Ty was able to finish in front of 301 riders, who are all very qualified riders, on gas bikes! In addition, a battery swap is no different than a gas stop for the ICE riders (maybe a little slower). Had the calculated stop point been a bit earlier and a few hiccups been ironed out we would have an entirely different conversation. I think it is pretty impressive for a new company to show up to compete with the biggest names in the industry on untested technology, qualify in the top fifty, and finish in the top half of riders despite the unplanned difficulty. Make no mistake, Erzberg is no joke!

 

[Mark911]

Since the introduction over a year ago, the Alta has again and again proven itself to be a solid, reliable and capable motorcycle in every venue it's entered. The measuring stick for this has nothing to do with gas vs electric, it's simply "does it break"? The answer is NO, even in the hands of the most aggressive riders under the most grueling conditions. I've yet to see one report of a major failure, one which could cause a DNF in a race such as the ER. It's not bulletproof, no bike in this performance category can be, but the typical failures in this category wouldn't be the kind that would prompt any design change. Wheels/spoke blow out, hubs break, etc, you simply can't design a bike to withstand hitting a boulder at 50mph and expect it to survive intact, it would weight 1000 pounds! And remember, the same bikes that DNFed the ER are probably the same makes/models that finished in the top ten! Does that suggest that the winners bikes are inherently unreliable and they just got lucky?

Alta has already selected many PROVEN components. The wheels, forks, shock, brakes, sprockets, chain, controls, etc, are all top shelf items (although I did notice that the ER bikes had Cone Valve forks and aftermarket wheels). Modern design, manufacturing and test technologies are light years ahead of where it was even 10 years ago yet alone the era when we used to worry about simple things leaving us stranded (DNF).

So that leaves the Alta specific components as potential failures. The frame, motor, inverter, electronics and battery pack. There's so much environmental data (shock, stress, modal, vibration, acoustics, thermal) available today and ways to either computer simulate or physically test components and systems to validate/optimize the design that any new manufacture has the opportunity to release products that comply 100% to their internal specifications. Rigorous reliability analysis (if used) can determine a potential failure down to fractions of a percent. So for the structural components it basically boils down to how much safety margin Alta applies to their calculated loads. Other than a few little failures (chain guides, etc), all evidence suggests Alta engineers did their homework and have selected suppliers that execute faithfully to their drawings and specifications. Of course, this aspect can change with new suppliers but I'm sure Alta specifies evidence of some kind of acceptance test on their critical components (or does it internally).

Packaging modern electronics to survive reliably is pretty rote now and is rarely an issue. The Alta does have some new and innovative applications of this technology (motor control, BMS, etc) but I doubt it's anything that hasn't been tested many times to failure in laboratory environmental test conditions. And again, no "in field" reported failures.

The battery pack has proven to be quire reliable. Although the cells are sourced there's still PCBs, interconnects, wire welds, interfaces and structural components that are Alta specific. If anything, the pack is probably the biggest unknown in terms of having tons of operational and environmental data from which to generate manufacturing and test specifications. Again, it appears Alta did an excellent job as I've heard of only one field failure, a low voltage issue as I recall (remember, the pack also supplies low voltage to power the various onboard electronics and sensors). The issues have always been heat, range, size and weight. BTW, these are not Alta only issues, every EV manufacture has the same constraints when it comes to batteries, at least today.

Attempting the ER is indeed a daunting task, logistically and otherwise. I wish they would have finished as it would have been a marketing bonanza to the uninformed skeptics. However, given unlimited battery swaps, as an Alta owner I would not have been surprised. I know how well the bike is designed and built and don't need a "one off" torture test of a race to prove it. On the other hand, if in doing so Alta exhibited some next generation battery pack with significantly improved capability that would be a different story completely. I guess we'll never know as Alta is very secretive about the battery pack.

 

[Philip]

I was hoping to see the Ty's Alta in this video. He wasn't there. But the video is pretty cool and worth watching anyway.

Warning: It is 2 hours and 14 minutes long! But you should at least watch the first 5-10 minutes. Then relax, get a beer, and watch 2 hours more.

It would have been super cool if the video was Ty's.

 

[Kurlon]

Holy hell what a MESS and I'm not even two minutes in. I do NOT have the right mindset for that kind of scramble.

 

[OneLapper]

I think this is the most comprehensive video of Alta at Erzberg. Short but it explains what happened.

 

[Mark911]

Nine production. I figured Alta wouldn't waste all the money it must have taken to field a team at ER without some getting some marketing play. From a bike perspective it was mainly battery, battery and battery. Getting the right map(s) to go the pace without overheating the pack seemed to be main focus. Seems like they knew the range to the changeout was marginal but I guess there was some issue with pitting in a better (closer) spot.

The "right" map is probably a bad description. It's was the "right" map for that particular rider on that particular day. And as they stated, they were able to get some significant improvements compared to the initial "best guess" maps. Just goes to show that with the right information (data logging) and knowledge one can tailor specific parameters to your ride/race situation and increase certain performance related attributes over the preprogrammed maps! We just need the comm software.

 

[Oded]

I think this is the most comprehensive video of Alta at Erzberg. Short but it explains what happened.

Loved the video and definately shed some light on what went on there.
I wish they released the entire footage from Ty's helmet camera.

 

[snydes]

Nice, finally some info. I think the top guys were in "machine" roughly 30 minutes in, so they really burnt through that first battery in a hurry.

 

[Philip]

So both Ty and Lyndon had dual foot/hand actuated rear brakes. Here is the screen snapshot at the 0:57 mark:

 

[Honcho]

So what's the point of entering a race where the PLAN is to do multiple battery pack swap outs? It just reinforces the stigma associated with the bike! Particularly when during the race they run out of juice.

My marketing team may give me the smackdown for chiming in here, but until they do...

You're right: it was an extremely audacious, maybe foolish, thing to attempt the world's hardest single day moto race. However, our eyeball calcs (more on that later) told us the race could be done with one battery change (just like the single refueling most of the gas bikes do, if they get far enough), Ty was game for it, and if we shied away from trying hard things because the first effort might be ugly, we never would have started this company...

The only way to get real data on the race is to run the race. You can't ride it any other time of year, you can't pre-run the course, and based on what we knew of mileage, elevation, and our best efforts at simulation this should have worked with the same single refueling stop as the gas bikes. There were 3 things that we'll call "learnings." First, and maybe the most obvious in retrospect, is that the loose frontside climbs use up far more energy than anything we'd tested on stateside, especially when you're using those climbs to regain position which brings us to... Second, we were a little caught out by the start - which meant conservation strategy went out the window as Ty picked his way through 30 riders, including Graham Jarvis to get up to 17th (I swear he was 10th when he passed me at the Bathtub), and then third, we unfortunately got a little turned around in the woods which is an easy thing to do the first time out with no pre-run. Couple those 3 things, and we miscalculated our battery swap. But we learned a lot, and what we learned wasn't that we *shouldn't* attempt it again...

We have an extraordinarily talented rider in Ty Tremaine. Truly blown away by that kid. His performance and poise not just as a first time entrant in the Rodeo, but on a first time bike supported by a first time team a fraction of the size of the big factory, was off the charts AND he's a total joy to work with. It is not easy for a racer to sign up to be part of an R&D effort - they're there to win - but he gets it and we're really lucky to have him.

This year wasn't the end game, it was the practice run.

Nice, finally some info. I think the top guys were in "machine" roughly 30 minutes in, so they really burnt through that first battery in a hurry.

Seems like it, but the gas bikes refuel at the top of the Machine before the drop in to Carl's Dinner, not too much further along the course. The front side 30min of climbing is where you use tons of energy/min - almost all of the elevation gain, and largely at full throttle through steep loose gravel/sand. It doesn't actually take that much energy/min to do the backside ~2 hours, bashing through Carl's or to do the trialsy climbs like Green Hell, especially on an electric.

 

[Philip]

I guess, even a privateer team could bring two Alta bikes, or a bike and a spare battery, and enter this race. Perhaps the electric does have some advantage in such a race, so taking 5 minutes to swap batteries might be a reasonable trade-off. So, from this standpoint, this is not an idle exercise, even from the PR perspective.

The battery technology is still lagging for such long and hard races, but we know it will only get better. And once it does, Alta will be positioned better than anybody else to jump on it and start using it. Do the Erzberg Rodeo on one charge, or with a 10-second battery swap, who knows.

we learned a lot, and what we learned wasn't that we *shouldn't* attempt it again...

I love your attitude! Perfect.

 

[Honcho]

Oh also, something about tires. Still not sure what that something is, but this is what the front half of the race did to a set of softs...

 

[snydes]

Ouch!

 

[rtf]

I wonder if the way the torque comes on with these bikes has something to do with it. Id be curious to see what the other guys rear tires looked like when they were done.