Official Specs for LiveWire Alpinista Revealed
LiveWire has just announced the third bike to use its S2 motor and battery platform the sporty sounding Alpinista
The LiveWire S2 Alpinista is being billed as the American EV brand’s first ‘sport standard’ after the flat-track-styled Del Mar, and more laid-back Mulholland. Featuring 17-inch wheels and sportier tyres than the other two options in the S2 range, if you’ve got £17k to spend on an electric bike that can handle - this might be the one.
The Del Mar, until now the sportiest machine in the S2 range, is a very sweet handling bike. Really the only limiting factor with it are the 19-inch wheels which are shod with flat-track style tyres which hold the bike back. Ditching those wheels for conventional 17-inch at both ends should make this bike much more responsive, and open up an Aladdin's cave of sportier rubber than before.
What else do we know about the new LiveWire S2Alpinista
Well, not a whole lot. As press releases go it’s not the most in-depth. It does tell us that the seat height has been reduced by 28mm, which it credits to the change in the wheel sizes. It doesn’t tell us anything specific about the suspension, though, for that we have to delve into the specsheets already up on the LiveWire website.
From what I can see, aside from the wheel changes, there’s not a lot going on. The forks seem to be the same 43mm Showa items as found on the Del Mar, and they boast the same 120mm of travel. Likewise, at the back of the bike we find the same Showa monoshock with preload adjustability and the same 120mm of wheel travel. Whether or not this supposedly sportier version of the S2 platform has different spring and damping rates within the hardware remains to be seen.
Like the suspension system, the braking hardware of the new Alpinista is shared with its sibling, meaning we find a Brembo M4 calliper which is mated to a frankly ginormous single front disc. Linked to the brakes is a Bosch six-axis IMU which provides the cornering ABS function and lean-sensative traction control.
The rest of the new bike’s specs are close to those of its siblings, with it tipping the scales at 196kg, producing 82bhp and churning out a whopping 194lb ft of peak twist. Those numbers should chuck the new bike from 0-60 in around three seconds, which is impressive, but about on the money for an electric bike in this segment. LiveWire also states that the range is 120 miles in the city and 71 miles on the highway (claimed). On the charging front, the Alpinista, like the other two bikes in the S2 family, allows for level 1 and 2 charging. L1 (domestic socket) is claimed to take it from 20 to 80 per cent in 5.9hrs while L2 is a speedier 78 minutes from 20 to 80 per cent.
So what is genuinely unique to the Alpinista? Its price for a start, because at £17,390, it comes in at £200 less than the Del Mar. Given that its sportier, more conventional wheel sizes should transform the handling quite a bit, it might just prove to be the pick of the LiveWire family.
More information can be found on the official website.
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