Experience Thread: A noobie getting into a specialized vado 5.0 IGH

[Stefan Mikes]

Specialized is the world leader in MTB and e-MTB.
There are many reason IGHs are not put on MTBs:

• Heavy weight
• Shifting the centre of gravity rearwards and upwards
• Smaller gearing range (hard to beat the 510% range of a 10-51T cassette)
• Far more gears (12) in the derailleur system
• Less efficient power transfer
• Impossible to select another size chainring on a whim
• Lack of control of the IGH gearbox: a mountain biker typically uses all 12 gears and has a precise control of choosing gears
• Slower shifting of the IGH
• Difficult field repair of the rear wheel
• Vulnerability of the belt to the twigs and pebbles; and mud.

Quote:
"Belt drives are used to carry uniform load and cannot handle frequent fluctuations of load and can fail easily as compared to chains. Chains can carry heavy load at low speed without slip which makes it an ideal drive to be used in bicycles/motorcycles".
Unquote.

You can easily find an e-MTB for US$13,000-15,000. No premium e-MTB has the belt/IGH.

Seriously, see some EMBN videos and you will understand why.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

But... I have found something for you. The only premium e-MTB with belt drive and IGH. From the German Nicolai Bikes. (Nicolai has funny ideas that do not always sell).

If anything wrong happens to you on a trail with this e-bike, don't make me responsible though If your Rohloff IGH starts leaking: you have been warned

 

[dynamic]

This is part of the resistant culture I am talking about. You are saying that because it is not on a $15k e-mountain bike, it doesn't belong on a 5k e-mountain bike? Let's look at your list compared to the objectives of the tero. Remember, I made no commentary about elite mountain bikes.

• Heavy weight
• Shifting the centre of gravity rearwards and upwards

Are people buying the tero because it's light weight? Last' I checked, not a good choice if that is the priority.

Smaller gearing range (hard to beat the 510% range of a 10-51T cassette)

Tero has a 380% range. Exactly the enviolo. That's the 5.0. 3.0 is less.

Far more gears (12) in the derailleur system

Infinite on enviolo. But, if you want to use pinion with rearhub drive or rohloff with mid, that could be done. Just not on a 5k tero level bike most likely.

Impossible to select another size chainring on a whim

Would be the same for chain tero and belt tero.

Lack of control of the IGH gearbox: a mountain biker typically uses all 12 gears and has a precise control of choosing gears

I flat out don't understand this argument. ON a shimano, rohloff or pinion you pick the fixed gear just like a chain. On Enviolo CVT you have any gear. If you can elaborate on the issue here, I would love to hear about it.

• Difficult field repair of the rear wheel
• Vulnerability of the belt to the twigs and pebbles; and mud.

These are what I acknowledged. *IF* the belt breaks, it could be a problem. What I am not seeing is the evidence that they are realistically more vulnerable than chain for normal riders. Again, the tero is not the extreme bike. Belt seems perfectly applicable.

Less efficient power transfer

This is the IGH, not so much the belt. And IGH's are getting better. But, yes, enviolo would lose something compared to chain. But, again, is that the priority of a tero buyer?

Slower shifting of the IGH

This is not my experience. One of the reasons I *like* belt is the enviolo gets into gear (even the manual one) much more smoothly and without hoopla associated with chains. Now, I am not sitting there measuring speed of switch. I can't speak to any of the other IGH gear boxes. But, this appears to be stretching things when talking about enviolo. Not to mention I can switch gears *while stopped*. If that isn't an advantage in mountain biking, I would be very surprised given how often stopping could occur.

I am just waiting for your head to explode when someone puts an IGH at the crank and the wheel and obliterates the gear range of every other bike in existence.

So, I will say it again: "That is going to happen on tero level mountain bikes as well." I do not claim that belts will replace chains in all situations. But I think they *will* replace chains on many more "regular" and "consumer" focused models over time. And the fact that there are so few mountain bikes using rohloff and belt *may* mean they can't handle it, or it may mean people aren't ready for that on a conceptual level and won't buy them... yet. And I, personally, do not see the evidence either direction at this point in time. Either way, concept changes or new more durable designs are both, not only possible, but they *will* happen. Progress is inevitable. It may get delayed, but it won't be eliminated.

Anyway, time for my ride and taking the bike to the shop. Now, if my bike does already "need parts" to make it work correctly, that might talk me into returning it for a chain model.

 

[dynamic]

Bike is fixed! I can now go up hill at 45 rpm in the lowest gear if I so choose. That gear *is* significantly easier. It might enable a step or maybe two less assist in micro-tune if I am willing to go slowly up a hill. The sound the hub makes is normal for an IGH while switching between gears quickly.

It's interesting, the limiting factor for me to be tolerant of hills isn't as much "can I handle it", it's more "am I patient enough to go this slow". I find that sub 10mph on this bike is boring.

Anyway, I *will* post a picture as soon as I get a few more things on the bike.

 

[MinnBobber]

A belt drive mtn bike appeals to me for low maintenance/ long life in harsh / dirty/ dusty/ muddy conditions.
Note: for non technical mtn biking.
How long do chains/ cassettes last on a high powered mid drive E mtn bike??
With all that extra power going thru the drivetrain, and often dirty conditions, what is typical component expected life?

Would the IGH/ carbon belt be suitable for a low maintenance gravel bike???

For road E bikes, a belt drive appeals to me a lot!!!

 

[dynamic]

A belt drive mtn bike appeals to me for low maintenance/ long life in harsh / dirty/ dusty/ muddy conditions.
Note: for non technical mtn biking.
How long do chains/ cassettes last on a high powered mid drive E mtn bike??
With all that extra power going thru the drivetrain, and often dirty conditions, what is typical component expected life?

Would the IGH/ carbon belt be suitable for a low maintenance gravel bike???

For road E bikes, a belt drive appeals to me a lot!!!

I think there is also a strong argument in many cases for shielded belts.

This industry is such that the olympic riders drive what is "best". But what is best for an olympic rider is not necessarily even relevant to the average recreational biker or commuter. Yet we are all buying bikes that are heavily influenced by olympic designs.

I still have an interest in the priority 600x/600 as a "regular" bike. As stated previously, two bikes are not on the table at this time. I have since discovered "clip-on" e-bike motors like the skarper. These are *very appealing* to me on something like a 600x/600. Once the vado power isn't needed, I could see the skarper being a really fun way to get e-bike benefits on a normal bike.

Anyway, happy riding!

 

[dynamic]

So, magpeds are here. I have adjusted them and done several test rides in several configurations. I have initial commentary, but it is only initial.

I followed the video instructions to setup the pedals. And I tried a few different configurations briefly to see how they work. I was surprised by a few things:

1. They could hold even through power riding. I thought this would be the instant deal breaker. I will say, if you focus your energy on "pulling up" they are going to release. But I don't put that much power into the up stroke.

2. They are harder to clip in than the pd-eh500. I tried the "cleats" (plates) alone, with a spacer, and with a location guide thing. None of them were particularly easy to clip into. You kind of have to float your foot around until you feel and hear the lock sound. The location guide was harder to find, but once it did lock-in, it was always solid. The other two could have a partial clip that could break easily.

3. Your rotation is anchored by the pedal pins. This meant my foot could land in a variety of angles while being clipped in. For me, this lead to hitting the belt guard as my toes naturally want to angle out. Clipping with shimano cleats naturally fixes this and I don't hit anything.

4. Some of the configurations were not much better to walk in than the shimano cleats. The best was the plate alone, but this was also the hardest to get a good solid connection. The spacer or the guide ultimately meant less recessed parts, and generated some crunch depending on the surface.

I will be contacting magpeds for advice. One thing they do recommend is flat sole shoes which I don't think these qualify. Will try a few real rides with them once I pick a configuration that seems like the best balance.

 

[Rollegourmet]

Bike is fixed! I can now go up hill at 45 rpm in the lowest gear if I so choose. That gear *is* significantly easier. It might enable a step or maybe two less assist in micro-tune if I am willing to go slowly up a hill. The sound the hub makes is normal for an IGH while switching between gears quickly.

So what did they do to fix it?
Thank you.

 

[dynamic]

Bike is fixed! I can now go up hill at 45 rpm in the lowest gear if I so choose. That gear *is* significantly easier. It might enable a step or maybe two less assist in micro-tune if I am willing to go slowly up a hill. The sound the hub makes is normal for an IGH while switching between gears quickly.

So what did they do to fix it?
Thank you.

I am not 100% sure. He said some of the automatic/igh was not tightened to spec and he thinks that may have effected the calibration. Once he did that and re-calibrated, I got the full range of the IGH.

I think he had the bike for a total of 20 minutes. I had enough time to get coffee and settle in to do some work from the coffee shop.

This is, however, why I wanted LBS support. And I am thrilled about that part of it.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

@dynamic: I don't want to go for a dispute on belt drive/IGH for e-MTB. Let the market and manufacturers decide!

I have reconsidered what Tero actually was. The same frame as Vado, different fork and different wheels, MTB geometry and equipment, making it a Cross Country e-bike. Certainly handling better in rough terrain! It is Class 1 for the U.S. making it legal on many trails. Still, it not a Trail e-MTB, just more capable off-road e-bike that is good for pavement, too. While a true e-MTB can hardly be ridden on the pavement!

Not sure about your local options. Where I live, I can rent a Specialized e-bike for a day at a low price for a demo ride. The catch is: if the demo e-bike is stolen or damaged, the rider has to be ready to put the money on the table. Therefore I took no risk of renting a Levo. Perhaps you could try and demo ride a Levo to understand the difference?

 

[dynamic]

Where I live, I can rent a Specialized e-bike for a day at a low price for a demo ride.

That’s exactly how I tried the vados and comos for a day. Not sure if they had a tero in that rental fleet. I had a brief demo ride of one and nothing stood out to me at the time. It’s just a dud on paper to me which is why I never looked at it further.

I really want to get to a retul location so I can get fit advice. I seem to need to choose between saddle comfort and hand numbness.

 

[dynamic]

Another day, learned new stuff on a ride! Today was my first actual rain ride. It was also the longest by miles at 16.9 miles (about 1.2 longer than the previous longest single ride). There was a light rain for the entire ride. I did my standard loop and decided to just stay on the bike trail for a bit. The rain was never an issue. At this temperature, the water is simply refreshing. And the kuhl pants actually did a pretty good job keeping water relatively at bay. I don't think this would have been great during moderate to torrential rain, but this was fine. Even the shoes were fine except one puddle really splashed my toes. I peeled everything off and took a shower when I got home. That is honestly the biggest issue, as I wouldn't typically have time for this length ride and cleanup after.

I did stop to adjust the magped pedals as well as the gp5 grips. I am still struggling with numbness in the hands. First the magpeds:

It is definitely possible to clip in without looking. But, with my shoes, and a lot of pedal pins, it is actually fairly difficult to get a good connection. Eventually, I stopped during the ride and removed a bunch of pedal pins. This has the effect of making it much easier to clip-in but also allowing much more float. Also, every rotation was generating a "clicking" noise while riding. This was because the magnet was not tight enough. Once I fixed both of these issues, I was able to clip-in reasonably well. There are 2 down sides and I am not sure either will last. 1) There is still a fair amount of "hunting" for the clipped position. 2) The float allowed does not automatically orient my foot correctly so my heal would occasionally strike the belt guard. Magpeds come with dual length/sided pedal pins and a ton of locations for them. One problem I could see is if you do use multiple shoes, the pin placement may not work for more than one set of shoes. My shoes have fairly aggressive treads and the "pins" need to live between them at very specific locations in order to be both magnetically connected and have orientation fixed. The margin for error is much much smaller than clipping into a shimano pedal. I will continue to adjust pins to find a comfortable middle ground between grip and magnetic connection.

Hand Numbness. It was pretty rough today. And, I think I am starting to understand why. On the vado, it's pretty natural to change underlying riding position based on the situation. When on open road I tend to lean forward more for pedal power. When on rougher road, or unknown roads, I tend to lean back and use my legs as a cushion. The problem is, both of these are generating different enough hand positions to make the grips ok for one but not the other. And, I have definitely had saddle + grip positions that work really well for one or the other.

I have found a local professional bike fit place. I have schedule a session but it's almost two months away. And I still don't have a way to move the bike there. I am going to try taking the front wheel off and see if I can squeeze it into my sedan.

Happy Riding!

 

[dynamic]

Anyone have adjustable stem, or a good solution for shortening the reach on the vado? Its stem looks a bit weird.

 

[dynamic]

So, today, I went 23.2 miles to get darn tough socks replaced. Only to find out they won't do an exchange in person at the factory (pretty sure they used to). Ah well. That's 23.2 miles done just for a pretty ride. Too bad.

I have decided magpeds are not the right pedal for me. Not because they don't work, they work very well... with the right shoe (flat soles). I am unwilling to tie the shoe to the pedal as I have a hard enough time finding shoes that fit comfortably and solve other shoe problems. Limiting that pool of shoes to flat sole options will be a lost cause for some of these shoe styles. I intend to buy *at least* full winter and full summer cycling shoes (boots/winterproof and sandals) in addition to these pearl izumi x-alp summit.

In other news, the need for a new pannier just jumped to the top of the list. One of the clips on the two wheel gear was broken when I got to my bike today. Haven't had it 30 days and returns are easier than warranty claims. But I need to order something ASAP. Arkel models are getting a lot of attention as many have laptop storage built in.

I may have finally made a dent on hand numbness. I pushed the seat back quite a bit. And then I set the height by the heal on the pedal method. I am also consciously trying to let the core dominate the position. Have it shift weight between pedals and saddle as much as possible. I tried a lower height and a higher height, the lower height very clearly put more stress on the knees with very little improvement of hand numbness, so I stayed with the higher.

This rain coat is too warm if it's not actively raining or cold. Today I should have worn my normal hoodie which is water repellant enough for light rain while staying quite a bit cooler.

On the way out, I chose to ignore RWGPS to stay on more "main" roads. Getting it to re-route that was an exercise in stupidity. So, on the way back, I trusted it, and outside of a small climb/peak I was trying to avoid, it was a much nicer ride. I think it's algorithms must take in other factors. Avoiding the main roads for that part of the trip was really nice.

Finally, battery life was 58% left I think (total mileage would be around 55 if I used the full battery). I definitely could have done better if I needed to. There were a few times where I was unnecessarily using 100% micro tune. This kind of range on this kind of terrain really makes the battery anxiety go away. I am not going to, and don't need to do 40+ mile trips on any normal day.

Happy Riding!

 

[dynamic]

Arkel metropolitan in copper has been ordered! Crazy pricey, but if it's the only pannier I need, I will be very happy.

 

[dynamic]

And finally, the moment you have all been waiting for….

 

[Stefan Mikes]

And finally, the moment you have all been waiting for….

I'm waiting for you to be making more and more miles!

 

[dynamic]

I'm waiting for you to be making more and more miles!

I don’t see it going beyond what I did today on any regular basis. I simply don’t have this kind of time usually.

The plan is to incorporate more and more “life” stuff. Work from coffee shops. Get the burley nomad and grocery shop with it. Hopefully take cars to service and bike home. Etc. Maybe even do kid drop off or pickup again.

None of that reaches the mileage I did today.

 

[e-boy]

I don’t see it going beyond what I did today on any regular basis. I simply don’t have this kind of time usually.

The plan is to incorporate more and more “life” stuff. Work from coffee shops. Get the burley nomad and grocery shop with it. Hopefully take cars to service and bike home. Etc. Maybe even do kid drop off or pickup again.

None of that reaches the mileage I did today.

godspeed dynamic

 

[GuruUno]

Wow. What a very long, long thread. I'll only add my initial experience, the IGH is not ready for prime time, it's a whole new way of learning how to manage your shifting (believe me, it is NOT automatic as they would lead you to believe). I tried, I did well over 600+ miles with my Vado IGH and was not happy. I had Specialized buy me out (refund the purchase), as the bike is not as advertised. Again, if so inclined, please review my previous postings. I say, stay away, unless you feel like a beta tester.