Owner's Review Ride Report: First single track ride on my new EXR


Speedkills

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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 :D

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.
 

WoodsWeapon

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The difference in regen from my MX toEXR is night and day, and Im really struggling getting used to it. At 170lbs I was able to get the MX suspension acceptable with clickers. On the EXR I can’t get it to a level of being safe. It loks like I’ll be donating the bike to MX Tech for a week for them to use as a test mule, then setup with their findings.
 

OneLapper

"You don't *really* need the water pump...."
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I can't say for certain if it was Alta or the dealer, but the front brake master cylinder was low of brake fluid when I got my MX. The brakes were great until the first time I intentionally laid the bike over on the trail to take a photo of an eagle sitting in a tree. Immediately after picking the bike up and moving on, no front brake. I had to pump it a dozens times then it almost worked well enough to trust, but it did get better for the rest of the ride. When I got home with the bike I found the reservoir about half full. Brakes have been awesome since bleeding and filling it up to the top.

The rear brake takes a lot of time to get used to. I consider it part of the learning curve to riding an Alta. When you learn how to adjust it (and take the lever apart, clean out the white grease, re-grease with Bel-Ray waterproof or such, and grease the spring on reassembly), it works well.

I have a MX and feel the suspension is nearly perfect for the enduro riding and racing I had done with it. It appears Alta got the SM suspension right, but EX(R) should have the MX(R) setup and the MX(R) should have the next notch up. Suspension is a subjective adjustment. I spent years tweaking the race suspension on a street car turned race car/endurance car. No one's "off the shelf" solution felt good to me, but eventually I got the suspension to where I could toss that car into any corner at 100 plus and know exactly was it was going to do.
 

Oded

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Israel
Actually my EX brakes (suppose they are similar to the EXR) work well. The front is very progressive, and when I compared it to my friend's KTM 250 brake, There was no huge difference. I actually prefered my Alta.

I did add a LHRB so i can't really comment on that. I remember it was too sensitive for me, but had a strong bite to it.

As far as the pegs goes - this is the most comfortable dirt bike I have ridden. I am tall at at 1.90m, and it is the first bike I did not feel bar risers are needed.
 

leeo45

Geezer in denial
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Lake Hartwell, SC
Actually my EX brakes (suppose they are similar to the EXR) work well. The front is very progressive, and when I compared it to my friend's KTM 250 brake, There was no huge difference. I actually prefered my Alta.

I did add a LHRB so i can't really comment on that. I remember it was too sensitive for me, but had a strong bite to it.

As far as the pegs goes - this is the most comfortable dirt bike I have ridden. I am tall at at 1.90m, and it is the first bike I did not feel bar risers are needed.

Similar experience to Oded with the brakes on my 2019 EXR, although no LHRB (yet?). I have three KTMs and the ALTA front brakes are very similar in response and braking force. The rear brake is plenty strong, but is even harder to modulate with my size 13 offroad boots than the KTMs; i.e. sort of ON/OFF except on pavement. I have changed my KTM XCW rear brake to a solid rotor and found that it made it easier to modulate, so I may go that route on the ALTA too..

It sounds like you may have some air in the line if your front is spongy.
 

Oded

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Similar experience to Oded with the brakes on my 2019 EXR, although no LHRB (yet?). I have three KTMs and the ALTA front brakes are very similar in response and braking force. The rear brake is plenty strong, but is even harder to modulate with my size 13 offroad boots than the KTMs; i.e. sort of ON/OFF except on pavement. I have changed my KTM XCW rear brake to a solid rotor and found that it made it easier to modulate, so I may go that route on the ALTA too..

It sounds like you may have some air in the line if your front is spongy.

According to that - you will love the LHRB. You won't belive how responsive it becomes, you can just feather the brake lever on steep descend without locking the rear wheel. It's great. I use the Rekluse kit which allows you to keep both foot and hand levers. I think the Alta kit have more braking power, but eliminates the foot lever.
 

Speedkills

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Great to hear everyone else’s front brakes are working well. I’ll just go ahead and bleed mine to be sure when I am putting the LHRB kit on.
 

leeo45

Geezer in denial
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I thought I would follow up on my earlier post above about the brakes on my EXR......

I know better after many years of roadracing and street riding, but I forgot to bed in the brakes on my new bike. :sleep: I just went out and rode. After about 40 or 50 miles of easy riding, the front brake became noticeably less responsive and required quite a pull on the lever to get anything resembling a quick stop. It wasn't spongy, it just wasn't stopping. I had a pretty good idea what was going on so I pulled the front wheel, cleaned the pads and disc and went out and did it right. Brakes are back to full stopping power.

So, the moral of this story is that if you have a new bike, you probably also have new brake pads and new discs. Doh!
 

Philip

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I know better after many years of roadracing and street riding, but I forgot to bed in the brakes on my new bike. :sleep: I just went out and rode. After about 40 or 50 miles of easy riding, the front brake became noticeably less responsive and required quite a pull on the lever to get anything resembling a quick stop. It wasn't spongy, it just wasn't stopping. I had a pretty good idea what was going on so I pulled the front wheel, cleaned the pads and disc and went out and did it right. Brakes are back to full stopping power.
Great troubleshooting! In my experience, I only needed to do maybe 2-3 hard stops on a new dirt bike to bed the brakes. Perhaps your rotors or pads had some oil or grease on them that needed to be cleaned or burned out. The KTM Brembo brakes are the benchmark of the industry, I am glad you were able to get them to start performing like they should.
 

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