I got an Electric Motion ePure LITE electric trials motorcycle recently. This is a very light dirt bike, no seat, designed for jumping onto logs and rocks.

https://www.electricmotion-usa.com/epure-lite

I’m not an observed trials rider (yet), but I’d been using a 2000 Gas Gas TXT trials bike as a better dirt bike for steep, tight mountain trails for some time. The ePure LITE has been a tremendous amount of fun, and everywhere I go I get two questions:

1. What’s the range?

2. How much did it cost?

For (1) I say you get between 2 and 3 hours on a charge depending on how hard you ride. For (2) it was $8,600 out the door, USD, for the 2021 i202 model.

But, can you climb a mountain on a small electric dirt bike? If you could, it would be great since it is so quiet and agile. This is my experience climbing Ben Lomond in Utah on the ePure LITE.

I started at 6,200 ft at the North Ogden Divide trailhead. Just over an hour later, I arrived at the summit at 9,711 ft covering a distance of 7.9 mi (as measured by the Gaia GPS app on my phone) with 56% of my battery left as shown by the built-in Charge Indicator.

I wondered if the continuous load of climbing would cause the battery or motor to overheat, but both remained cool to the touch on both the initial steep switchbacks and the final 800 ft climb to the peak.

I inflated the front and rear tires to 15 psi for all but the last 800 vertical feet when I dropped the rear to 6 psi and the front to 9 psi.

From an energy consumption point of view, it would have taken 413.9 Wh of energy to lift the 163 lb bike plus 150 lb me with gear to the summit:

313 lbs * 3511 ft * .0003766 Watt-hours / ft-lbs = 413.9 Wh

If you take at face value the 26.5 mi range and 1875 Wh battery capacity from the Electric Motion website, it takes about 70.75 Wh/mi just for flat ground, so for my trip to the summit I would have used:

70.75 Wh/mi * 7.9 mi (for the distance traveled) + 413.9 Wh (for the climb) = 972.8 Wh

This is 52% of the battery’s 1875 Wh capacity, which is a bit more than the 44% the Charge Indicator claimed I used.

The ePure LITE doesn’t have Progressive Regenerative Braking (like the Sport and Race models), and I didn’t notice much regeneration on my descent. I didn’t use much energy, either, and I ended up back at the trailhead with 47% showing on the Charge Indicator. So, I need a bigger mountain!

If you do this ride, note the limited times of year that motor vehicles are allowed on the trail, July 15 to Nov 15.

Click to download GPX track of ascent.