Hello, I plan on getting a specialized Tero 4.0 and would like to know it’s capabilities when it comes to climbing hills, I’m getting an electric bike because my city isn’t flat at all and I plan to often be climbing a 8-10 degrees hill, so how much effort will I need to put on turbo mode to climb these types of hills?
I think you should have no issues whatsoever to climb the 8-10% inclines with the 470 W peak power of the Specialized 2.0 motor and 36-42T granny gear gearing. The latter is equivalent to "25 gear-inches", and while it is still not the proper "MTB granny gear", I do not think you should put a lot of effort to climb
unless the climb is several kilometres long. 8 or 10% grade is not dramatic for an e-bike such as Tero 4.0; 14 or 19% long grade could be problematic, though.
How is your fitness? Let me describe some of my experiences.
I am an ailing person with bad legs (that cannot improve). My average leg power is just 80 W, and I can produce something like 140 W with my legs over short period of time. One of my vacation rides included a long 14% climb; at that time my older Vado 5.0 (520 W peak power
if my legs could force the motor to work at full power) had inadequate gearing (48-42T, 30 gear-inches) yet I could climb that hill with some effort. Other more extreme rides on the same e-bike included improved gearing (38-46T, 24 gear-inches) and I could even do 19% long climbs with some sweating.
I am positive Tero 4.0 could climb your hill with you not sweating. If you, however, would like to be absolutely sure you could climb
any hill, Tero 5.0 with 565 W peak power is the answer.
Again, I do not think an 8-10% hill would be problematic for Tero 4.0.
