Specialized 2022 turbo vado 4.0

[Bumblebea]

Hello everyone, my name is Bea and I live on Pender Island, British Columbia Canada and I am thrilled to find this forum. I am sure I will learn so much from everyone as I am so new to the e-bike.

I have been toying with purchasing an e-bike for a few years now, so after many many hours of researching I finally settled on the specialized turbo Vado 4.0. I have gone out for a few rides and am trying to figure out how to pedal with efficiency. I must be doing some things wrong as steep hills are giving me some challenges, I am determined push through and ride with confidence.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Welcome to EBR Forums, Bea! What a beautiful ride! Looks like a 2022 model?

Climbing steep hills has never been easy. If you climb in a very low gear (necessary) and Turbo mode, you would need to practice spinning the cranks fast. And do not expect any high speed uphill: That's often more like crawling at 12-14 km/h. Please join our User Club, it could be an interesting talk with other users there!

Specialized Turbo Vado/Como/Tero/Tero X User Club

Majority of EBR Forum owners of Specialized e-bikes ride either a Turbo Vado or a Como. This is natural, as these two major models have been designed for an average cyclist. Turbo Levo and Kenevo are technical ride stuff, discussed on e-MTB fora. Creo is for road cycling fanatics :) It is...

electricbikereview.com

 

[Prairie Dog]

Welcome and congrats on acquiring your new ride. Sure is a beaut!

What a small world. We have friends who live on North Pender and who were kind enough to store our kayaks for us out there. What a wonderful part of the country you live in.

 

[Bumblebea]

Welcome and congrats on acquiring your new ride. Sure is a beaut!

What a small world. We have friends who live on North Pender and who were kind enough to store our kayaks for us out there. What a wonderful part of the country you live in.

Now that is a small world, who are your friends, just might know them ..

 

[Prairie Dog]

Now that is a small world, who are your friends, just might know them ..

The Ackermans. They still hold residence in Cochrane but spend a fair amount of time out on Pender.

 

[Bumblebea]

The Ackermans. They still hold residence in Cochrane but spend a fair amount of time out on Pender.

The name sounds familiar…

 

[Marcela]

Nice bike. Something that might help with the hills is a smaller front gear, or chainring. Praxis bike works makes a steel 36t ring that is a simple bolt on. You don’t need to shorten the chain even.

Good luck and enjoy.

 

[Bumblebea]

Welcome to EBR Forums, Bea! What a beautiful ride! Looks like a 2022 model?

Climbing steep hills has never been easy. If you climb in a very low gear (necessary) and Turbo mode, you would need to practice spinning the cranks fast. And do not expect any high speed uphill: That's often more like crawling at 12-14 km/h. Please join our User Club, it could be an interesting talk with other users there!

Specialized Turbo Vado/Como/Tero/Tero X User Club

Majority of EBR Forum owners of Specialized e-bikes ride either a Turbo Vado or a Como. This is natural, as these two major models have been designed for an average cyclist. Turbo Levo and Kenevo are technical ride stuff, discussed on e-MTB fora. Creo is for road cycling fanatics :) It is...

electricbikereview.com

Thank you Stef, the island I live on is filled with hills and spinning the crank fast and efficiently is going to take time to get right. I picked the Vado 4.0 as I would like to pull my elderly dog, but honestly I don’t think that will happen with what I am learning now. Now I am double guessing my choice.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Bea: I'm a 60-yo man plagued with unsufficient blood supply to my legs. I've owned four e-bikes and it started in August 2019. I have known how to operate the derailleur since the beginning. Now, a Vado is my favourite e-bike, a major ride for my mountain vacation every year (it is the best e-bike I have owned!) What I did was accepting the reality. When I climb hills, I actually ride in very low gears and in the Turbo mode. Marcela here has replaced her chainring with a 36T one for easier climbs. I went from a 48 teeth chainring down to a 38T one. Your Vado has a 40T one, and it is very close.

Nothing stops you to conquer the hills as long as you accept it is not that easy. And I am sure you'd gradually get at it!

 

[Bumblebea]

Bea: I'm a 60-yo man plagued with unsufficient blood supply to my legs. I've owned four e-bikes and it started in August 2019. I have known how to operate the derailleur since the beginning. Now, a Vado is my favourite e-bike, a major ride for my mountain vacation every year (it is the best e-bike I have owned!) What I did was accepting the reality. When I climb hills, I actually ride in very low gears and in the Turbo mode. Marcela here has replaced her chainring with a 36T one for easier climbs. I went from a 48 teeth chainring down to a 38T one. Your Vado has a 40T one, and it is very close.

Nothing stops you to conquer the hills as long as you accept it is not that easy. And I am sure you'd gradually get at it!

Thank you, your mouth is very important to me… merry Christmas

 

[Marcela]

Picture looks like s 48t chainring.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Picture looks like s 48t chainring.

If yes, the change you propose makes great sense!

 

[Deacon Blues]

Bumblebea, welcome to the forum. I live fairly close to you, up in Coombs.

 

[Bumblebea]

so With the bike giving me so much trouble getting up a hill and reading your comments, I pondered on whether it was something I was doing wrong. I am not unfit and I have a good knowledge of changing gears as I pedal, to me it just felt like I was not getting any assistance going up a hill but I did feel it engage on flat services which was odd. I called the store I purchased the bike and booked an appointment. They did a software update, took it for a test and said it was working for them. I just took it out for a ride and omg, it was like I had a different bike. I even took it to that steep hill where I had to get off the bike mid-way but this time i had no issues, I could hear when the assist engaged as I pedalled. it was wonderfu. But then I got home and got an error saying that either the battery is lose or the light cables as they are drawing to much power, I suppose I’ll become a Pro technician when all is said and done.. lol …

Merry Christmas everyone…

 

[Bumblebea]

I just found this on the forum and this is exactly the error I received after my ride. should I be worried?

 

[JVD]

I also have a 2022 Vado that I got a few weeks ago and like you Bea I'm in learning mode. This is not my first ebike. I put in 3800 miles on an Aventon Level that I purchased new in January 2021. It is a fine hub-drive bike for the $$, but I decided I wanted a bike with more connectivity and feedback, as well as a mid-drive setup. After swallowing hard, I purchased my new Vado and it is a dream to ride by comparison. I've been experimenting with the various PAS modes and how they work with the derailleur system. I'm not doing any long uphills, but do have a couple of quarter-to-half-mile grades on one of my rides in the foothills of the Santa Rosa mountains here in Palm Springs. They've given me the opportunity to try out various PAS-chain combos. I've found that this bike is so much more versatile than my Level, probably due in part to the 11 vs 8 speed chain system. But the greater power of the Vado helps too! I live in Colorado in the summer and plan to give it (and me) more of a workout in some real mountains at altitude. Will be interested to hear how your riding goes.

 

[Bumblebea]

I also have a 2022 Vado that I got a few weeks ago and like you Bea I'm in learning mode. This is not my first ebike. I put in 3800 miles on an Aventon Level that I purchased new in January 2021. It is a fine hub-drive bike for the $$, but I decided I wanted a bike with more connectivity and feedback, as well as a mid-drive setup. After swallowing hard, I purchased my new Vado and it is a dream to ride by comparison. I've been experimenting with the various PAS modes and how they work with the derailleur system. I'm not doing any long uphills, but do have a couple of quarter-to-half-mile grades on one of my rides in the foothills of the Santa Rosa mountains here in Palm Springs. They've given me the opportunity to try out various PAS-chain combos. I've found that this bike is so much more versatile than my Level, probably due in part to the 11 vs 8 speed chain system. But the greater power of the Vado helps too! I live in Colorado in the summer and plan to give it (and me) more of a workout in some real mountains at altitude. Will be interested to hear how your riding goes.

Congratulations on your purchase, so wonderful to hear you are lovin the new ride. I have not had a lot of ride time yet as we have had so much rain. We have a lot of challenging hills on the island, so I’m just trying to find my peddling style and confidence. Besides the hills I love the speed, so fast … zoom zoom .. enjoy, and I look forward to following your adventures ..

 

[JVD]

I've had my 2022 Vado 4 for five months now and it's been a dream with no regrets, despite the price. The more interactive capabilities of the Vado as compared to my old Aventon Level are especially useful. I particularly like the continuous cadence display on the main screen as that's my primary metric for getting the most out of my rides. I've put on about 1900 miles since last March and I've had no warranty-related issues at all, but several flat tires. I've recently installed Tannus Tire Armour as I ride alone in pretty remote areas, so hopefully that one issue will be mostly resolved (fingers crossed!). I did upgrade the saddle to another Specialized model that's a bit more padded. I also swapped out the grips for more ergonomic ones with larger flanges for palm support. Finally, I added an MIK-compatible trunk bag from Basil. While the Specialized literature says the rear rack is MIK-ready, I still had to buy the extra mounting adapter plate to mount the bag securely. I do ride frequently in auto traffic and have added a rear view mirror and clamp-on lights that have flashing capabilities. I do wish the lights provided by Specialized had the capability to operate in a flashing mode for more visibility during the day. I will note that the recent Mission Control app update caused some issues but they seem to have worked out. Specifically, when viewing My Rides the maps did not appear after the update. After fiddling around several times with Location permissions on my phone, the maps started to appear again. Not really sure if it was something I did or if another update came through automatically. In any case all is well and I'm looking forward to many more miles of great rides. Here's a pic overlooking the South Platte River north of Denver along one of my favorite routes.