Specialized Turbo Vado SL: An Incredible E-Bike (User Club)

Stefan Mikes said:
If Sofiane Sehili is Gen Z then maybe.

I asked my community:
  • The Hunt wheels are known as a British brand
  • Some friends ride them, very happy
  • We get Hunt wheels from the UK by a reseller in Germany.
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Stefan I’ve just looked up that Sofiane Sehili guy. Impressively tough and able but He obviously knows nothing about bikes or how to select a good set of wheels. 😂
 
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zbikeman said:
Have you checked the rear hub carefully for signs of fatigue / failure / cracks?

I once had an MTB hub - Shimano Deore DX if memory serves - where I kept blowing through spokes in the rear wheel near the hub. I'm a lightweight, so it wasn't excess weight, hucking the bike, jumping off curbs or anything like that. I think it was on the third or fourth replacement that I decided to take a really close look at the hub.

Sure enough, there's a hairline crack right at the spoke hole that was stressing every spoke threaded through that hole, new or used, and eventually causing complete failure. I dismantled that wheel, threw away the hub (wasn't gonna help anyone now), and told myself to check all components very carefully when going through unusual wear patterns.
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Thanks for the tip Zbike. I will definitely do a closer inspection before putting the wheel back in use.
 
Stefan Mikes said:
A Kaputt Range Extender?

I experienced the most strange phenomenon on our group ride yesterday. I was riding on the main batter and one of my REs labelled "ENG" (by me). At some ride point, the main battery dropped to 7% but the RE got stuck at 49%: both were reported on Wahoo, so the RE was connected to the Vado SL. As the RE was not delivering any current, the motor got derated. Lucky me I spotted the issue! As soon as I disconnected the RE and turned the e-bike on, the TCU displayed a red LED for the main battery (correct). More. Even if the RE was seen by Wahoo, its green LEDs were gone from the TCU!

The RE might have got broken and protected by BMS against discharging, or it was just a one-time incident. The battery charges normally; a faulty battery would not, and there would be error LEDs on the RE flashing.

As we say in Poland: "Ride. Observe." :D I will definitely keep my eye on the ENG!
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Just for fun: My three range extenders are labelled:
  • CHEMICAL
  • ENG(ineer)
  • HERO
:D

The fourth RE is unlabelled.
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A Mirrycle on my Fearless broke because of a manufacturing defect. Not buying Mirrycles anymore! (I'm now on my last one).
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My nameless RE is about as old as my SL—both 2021 vintage. Early on, the RE and main battery discharged at nearly identical rates and stayed closely matched in percentage throughout a ride. A few months in, the Specy app flagged a potential issue that could make the RE unusable or even stop the bike from working while it was connected.

Despite that warning, it’s kept working over the years—but the discharge behavior has changed. At times during a ride, the TCU shows the main battery draining much faster than the RE. Then later in the ride, they sometimes come back into balance.





It’s still nice to have the extra energy, but the inconsistent discharge pattern—and its effect on the main battery—has always been a concern.
 
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There are a couple of Specialized support articles that explain. Home > Resources > All About Turbo > Turbo Super Light (SL) System > Powering Your Ride: Battery Safety, Longevity & Responsibility and Home > Resources > All About Turbo > Turbo Super Light (SL) System > Turbo SL System: Battery State of Charge vs. Motor Power with links below. One of my RE's displayed a green and red bar when the battery button was pushed. The bike would not start until the RE was disconnected. The RE battery tested by a shop as having a permanent failure. The BMS is designed to work this way.

 
Allan47.7339 said:
There are a couple of Specialized support articles that explain. Home > Resources > All About Turbo > Turbo Super Light (SL) System > Powering Your Ride: Battery Safety, Longevity & Responsibility and Home > Resources > All About Turbo > Turbo Super Light (SL) System > Turbo SL System: Battery State of Charge vs. Motor Power with links below. One of my RE's displayed a green and red bar when the battery button was pushed. The bike would not start until the RE was disconnected. The RE battery tested by a shop as having a permanent failure. The BMS is designed to work this way.

Click to expand...
Thank you Allan! You are the most helpful user!
My battery didn't produce any error or a red bar. I consider it as a one-off incident.
 
Converting to 12 Speed!

As the electronic Wheeltop derailleur (and the new DT Swiss rear wheel) gave me the total freedom of choice for the drivetrain, I decided to go to twelve speeds with my Vado SL:
  • A DT Swiss Star Ratchet freehub body with Micro Spline, 148 mm
  • A Shimano Deore XT CS-M8200, 10-51T cassette
  • A Shimano CN-8100 chain
  • (Of course, the derailleur and the shifter remain: these are for any speed)
I will also swap the Garbaruk chainrings between my both e-bikes. Now, Vado SL will get the 36T chainring and Vado 6.0 is getting the 38T one. One of the reasons is Vado 6.0 is capable to only achieve 40 km/h with the 36T chainring and my high cadence; it could ride even faster given a bigger chainring. While my Vado SL has never been a very fast e-bike, so the max speed of some 35-37 km/h max on the flat should be OK for me.

One of the reasons I'm changing the gearing is the fact I am a cadence fan. Currently, I have an equal gearing spread for gears 7-11 with a big jump at gear 6. The 12-speed gearing would equalize the gearing spread in the middle gears. I would also get the top gearing of 36/10T (was 38/11T).

I might also re-use my custom 11-51T cassette on Vado 6.0 to improve the climbing capability, which I would need for a hilly rally in May this year. The granny gear on Vado 6.0 would then be 38/51T, still an alpine gear (was 36/46T).

A lot of fun for me in the coming days! :)
 
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Allan47.7339 said:
Hopefully Wheeltop has improved their firmware to match their hardware.
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I have been on several long rides and the derailleur worked perfectly. Yes, I experienced some trouble in the earliest phase of using the system but that was caused by my lack of understanding and little experience. For instance, the derailleur "thought" the gear 6 was the top gear. The issue and the remedy were very well explained in the Wheeltop FAQ.

No issues since! It all works buttery smooth, quietly and the shifting is crisp and immediate. I love seeing the current gear on my Wahoo, and found out I mostly ride in gears 7-9 of 11 :) The battery lasts forever!

On one of the latest rides, three of four riders had electronic shifting: Wheeltop OX2.0, Wheeltop Gex (front and rear), and SRAM (for gravel bikes, 1x12).
 
The Conversion To 12-speed Done!

It was not that simple, at least for me :) Removing the DT Swiss HG freehub body was too easy. I was figuring out how the device worked and missed noticing that one of the springs fell out onto the floor and mischievously hid itself under a piece of paper :) To my big surprise, the new freehub body (Microspline) came without the springs or the pawls! (My brother explained to me the pawls and springs were the most expensive parts of the mechanism and those belonged to the rear hub). Eventually the freehub body was in place and working nicely.

Next, the CS-M8200 12-speed, 11-51T cassette. I thought I had worked with cassettes long enough to understand them but had a big issue to engage the lockring. Turned out, the cassette had to be installed on the freehub body with the utmost precision! So I was lying next to the rear wheel and placing a part after part slowly and precisely. Then the darned lockring worked! :)

The next thing I had to do was to clean and swap chainrings between Vado 6.0 and Vado SL. I even don't want to elaborate but that took some time. It is hard to imagine how much gunk those rings could accumulate! The final action was sizing and installing a new 12-speed chain.

Now, after all the expense and work, my appetite has grown. Why not to move the Wheeltop derailleur to Vado 6.0 and go for the Shimano XTR M9250 Upgrade Kit - Di2 | 1x12-speed - with RD-M9250-SGS / SW-M9250-R for my Fearless? @stompandgo, would you approve? :)
 
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NOW YER TALKIN

I'd recommend the Deore XT M8260 long cage so that you can wire it into the main battery and have all sorts of cool stuff to play around with like Autoshift.
 
stompandgo said:
I took a quick look, and could not find any compatibility information for Vado Di2. If there is no way around it, you'd have to go full wireless M8250 long cage.
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No way around it. The compatibility is Bosch and Shimano. I have already ordered the full wireless 9250-SGS kit (with a clamp shifter). I am already used to charging the battery...
 
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