Howie7
Member
- Region
- United Kingdom
Specialised turbo Vado SL 5.0 EQ my impressions after four rides
So after just four rides, about 60 miles in total. I have a very favourable opinion of the bike and I am delighted that I decided to go ahead with my purchase. Firstly it’s lighter than I had imagined it to be, which is just great, it’s all very well seeing the weight written down on paper but until you actually pick the bike up with your panniers on it’s difficult to gauge how it’s going to compare with any previous bikes you have ridden, and this is really not very much heavier than my previous hybrid road bike, probably about the same as the Rohloff hub bike that I have. Secondly if you switch the bike on so that the mastermind TCU is showing and then switch it to the off position you can ride it like any normal bike and it rides extremely well with no noticeable difference from riding a normal non-electric bike. Then once you turn the motor on there is a gradual increase in assistance to your peddling as you scroll through the three modes of boost. I live in a fairly flat area, Cambridge UK, and I found that on most occasions the eco-mode is fine. I went up a moderately steep hill near my home in the trail mode which was very satisfactory for getting me up this 6 to 8% hill with the chain on the cogs in the middle of the rear hub. Yesterday I did one of the steepest hills where I live which goes for about half a mile at 10% and in the turbo mode I was able to climb this without too much difficulty again in the chain was in the middle of the rear cassette. I’m not sure whether I should have been in a lower gear to get up this hill but you do need to keep the pedals turning at a reasonable cadence in order to get the full benefit of the assistance. This bike has a 12 speed cassette and the outer ring appears enormous, at the moment I haven’t tried it yet but I’m not sure if I would ever have a need for it and I may have been overly ambitious in my needs when I bought the 5.0 version and could probably manage with the 4.0 version of this bike. The mastermind TCU seems to give a very accurate read out of the parameters that it measures compared to the few of these that I have checked with my Garmin edge 605 that I fitted to the bike, there is a 100% correlation.
I have a couple of questions which I hope the community might be help with. The bike has Tektro hydraulic brakes and their instructions say that the bike should not be turned upside down with these brakes fitted, presumably because of the risk of air from the reservoir going into the lines and affecting breaking. So I’m not quite sure how I should tackle a puncture should I get one out on route as my normal practice is to turn the bike upside down remove the wheel and change the innertube. I suppose for the front wheel I could keep the bike upright remove the wheel and balance the bike on the front forks but as they are carbon I would not like to rest those on an asphalt surface. To minimise the risk of punctures I was thinking about changing the tires to Schwalbe marathon plus E, has anyone any experience with using these tyres on this bike?
So after just four rides, about 60 miles in total. I have a very favourable opinion of the bike and I am delighted that I decided to go ahead with my purchase. Firstly it’s lighter than I had imagined it to be, which is just great, it’s all very well seeing the weight written down on paper but until you actually pick the bike up with your panniers on it’s difficult to gauge how it’s going to compare with any previous bikes you have ridden, and this is really not very much heavier than my previous hybrid road bike, probably about the same as the Rohloff hub bike that I have. Secondly if you switch the bike on so that the mastermind TCU is showing and then switch it to the off position you can ride it like any normal bike and it rides extremely well with no noticeable difference from riding a normal non-electric bike. Then once you turn the motor on there is a gradual increase in assistance to your peddling as you scroll through the three modes of boost. I live in a fairly flat area, Cambridge UK, and I found that on most occasions the eco-mode is fine. I went up a moderately steep hill near my home in the trail mode which was very satisfactory for getting me up this 6 to 8% hill with the chain on the cogs in the middle of the rear hub. Yesterday I did one of the steepest hills where I live which goes for about half a mile at 10% and in the turbo mode I was able to climb this without too much difficulty again in the chain was in the middle of the rear cassette. I’m not sure whether I should have been in a lower gear to get up this hill but you do need to keep the pedals turning at a reasonable cadence in order to get the full benefit of the assistance. This bike has a 12 speed cassette and the outer ring appears enormous, at the moment I haven’t tried it yet but I’m not sure if I would ever have a need for it and I may have been overly ambitious in my needs when I bought the 5.0 version and could probably manage with the 4.0 version of this bike. The mastermind TCU seems to give a very accurate read out of the parameters that it measures compared to the few of these that I have checked with my Garmin edge 605 that I fitted to the bike, there is a 100% correlation.
I have a couple of questions which I hope the community might be help with. The bike has Tektro hydraulic brakes and their instructions say that the bike should not be turned upside down with these brakes fitted, presumably because of the risk of air from the reservoir going into the lines and affecting breaking. So I’m not quite sure how I should tackle a puncture should I get one out on route as my normal practice is to turn the bike upside down remove the wheel and change the innertube. I suppose for the front wheel I could keep the bike upright remove the wheel and balance the bike on the front forks but as they are carbon I would not like to rest those on an asphalt surface. To minimise the risk of punctures I was thinking about changing the tires to Schwalbe marathon plus E, has anyone any experience with using these tyres on this bike?
