⚙️ #19 Alpha Is Here! 🚨

Welcome and thank you to all our new Dust subscribers over the past month!

The Model_1 Alpha prototype is here! Last week Josh Hill took the first ride at Perris Raceway with Tucker Neary from Electric Cycle Rider. Huge thanks to Josh, Tucker, and Scott at Perris Raceway for all their help. This session is documented in an awesome 10-minute video below:

Approach

DUST has been a rapid 6-month sprint from conception to rideable Alpha prototype. Our small core team of 5 people posts regularly on Instagram (Here) as we openly build our bike, brand and business in public. We have a core group of 50 riders who pre-ordered bikes on day 1. Known as Founders50 (F50), they meet with Dust monthly for feedback and to get updated on BTS progress (Here). The next opportunity to pre-order is coming the first half of 2024, when the next batch of bikes will be sold for delivery in mid 2025.

Philosophy

Dust is developing the ultimate play bike. The goal was to build a bike that corners like a 125 and pulls like a 250. The Model_1 is designed to go alongside your big gas bike in your garage and close the gap in your quiver, built for the backyard tracks, freeride zones, and single track. We want to use the unique mid-weight form factor to get more people spending time riding moto with bikes that are designed, tested, and built in America.

This is a unique opportunity for an American brand to take a more transparent approach to building a brand and bike in public view. We've leaned into sharing openly all along the way. The consistent flow of feedback from our engaged following is incredibly useful to help drive some of our decision-making.

Development

From a blank canvas to a full running Alpha prototype bike in 6 months. Starting back in August with the broad strokes architecture and requirements setting, we transitioned to detailed design in October once we were confident on the direction. Our starting vision of building the funnest performance bike possible was underpinned by key decisions for ergonomics, sizing, suspension kinematics, wheel size and powertrain targets. Over the course of 2.5 months, these elements were brought to life in our computer aided design and simulation files, such that in the beginning of December we were confident to release files for prototype build. The month of December and early January were spent managing a variety of suppliers, as well as build and test activities locally.

The culmination of the Dust Alpha journey is the actual physical build and ride. We finished the build on Tuesday, January 23rd, had a reveal event at our HQ in Bend, Or. on Tuesday, and 24 hours later the Alpha was in southern California getting tested on dry dirt by a few top tier riders. The early feedback that we have gotten back has been positive. Constructive feedback we got around gearing, noise and spring rates were very actionable and we are excited to start making tweaks on the Alpha bike while evolving our design.

As discussed in Newsletter #16, Prototype to Perfection, this is the first phase of several design-build-test-refine loops that will get us to a design that is ready to knock the socks off customers.

Gold Dust

• In our EICMA round up newsletter we mentioned the Ducati Hypermotard, but on a slightly different note, Ducati is getting into the MX racing scene with their new Desmo450 MX prototype. Check it out HERE.
• E-moto has been awarded it's own category in the Dakar Rally. It's exciting to see electric bikes in the event as this should drive substantial investment into R&D in the industry. Check out Electirc Cycle Riders break down HERE.
• It's always good to check in with our friends across the pond to see what they are up to. This last weekend was the 2024 Valleys XTreme enduro event in Wales, check it out HERE.

Catch us at newsletter@dustmoto.com OR just respond to this email!

Done and DUSTED for this month. See you all on the next lap.