Specialized Turbo Creo 28mph Electric Road Bike

I have the Creo Carbon Comp EVO model and I’ve been really impressed by the range. I’ve been road racing (amateur) for 15+ years and decided to give this bike a try just to mix it up a bit… and I LOVE it! It’s opened up a ton of new territory for me. I can go hard or easy and still go far. When riding with other folks I tend to keep it in Eco mode, set at about 30% assist or less.

Here are a few of my recent rides to give you all an idea of the range I’ve been having (keep in mind that I do have the range extender), also as a reference, I’m about 6’2”, 198lbs: Yesterday I did a 56mile gravel ride with 5000ft of climbing and used about half of my battery. So I could have likely ended up with a 100 mile, 10000 vert day and still been able to limp back to the trailhead.

I did a road ride (with road tires) at Mt Rainier last week and did 55 miles, 6100 ft of climbing and only used 170wh. So with my range extender, I could have almost done that ride 2 more times!

Last example: I did a 77 mile road ride, avg speed 18+mph, 4300ft vert with some hard efforts chasing my teammates (high level amateur road racers) and used 334wh. I reckon I could have made it about 100miles under those conditions.
 
Those are impressive rides, Capt Mudbuster!

But be careful extrapolating distances. The first miles are the easiest, the later miles tend to be tougher. 😉
 
Capt MudBuster said:
I have the Creo Carbon Comp EVO model and I’ve been really impressed by the range. I’ve been road racing (amateur) for 15+ years and decided to give this bike a try just to mix it up a bit… and I LOVE it! It’s opened up a ton of new territory for me. I can go hard or easy and still go far. When riding with other folks I tend to keep it in Eco mode, set at about 30% assist or less.

Here are a few of my recent rides to give you all an idea of the range I’ve been having (keep in mind that I do have the range extender), also as a reference, I’m about 6’2”, 198lbs: Yesterday I did a 56mile gravel ride with 5000ft of climbing and used about half of my battery. So I could have likely ended up with a 100 mile, 10000 vert day and still been able to limp back to the trailhead.

I did a road ride (with road tires) at Mt Rainier last week and did 55 miles, 6100 ft of climbing and only used 170wh. So with my range extender, I could have almost done that ride 2 more times!

Last example: I did a 77 mile road ride, avg speed 18+mph, 4300ft vert with some hard efforts chasing my teammates (high level amateur road racers) and used 334wh. I reckon I could have made it about 100miles under those conditions.
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I'm surprised that the Creo is useful for you. I would have thought a strong rider like yourself wouldn't benefit much from the Creo. I'm likely far slower than you and while I like the Creo I've found it limiting. With slower groups I'm going so slow that the motor really doesn't help much. When I ride with a fast group I hit the 32 km/hr. limit pretty fast and then I'm just riding a heavier bike. Hmmm, maybe you're in the US with a 45 km/hr. speed limit, which would make a big difference.

I just would have thought someone who's raced for over a decade and rides regularly would be so strong the Creo wouldn't be that much use and you wouldn't like it. But I guess I'm wrong about that.
 
I am in the US, so the cutoff is 28mph/45kmhr. To be honest, I'm not sure I would have bought the bike if I was limited to the lower EU cutoff speed. Although, I'd still find it useful on gravel rides where the speeds are generally lower. I use the bike for all sorts of activities, some of which I mentioned in my earlier posts (riding with younger/faster teammates) but I also use it to run long-distance errands when I don't want to get sweaty, sometimes I use it to pop out and get groceries or coffee, and days when I just want to explore a bit but not necessarily get a 'workout'. At 54 years old, I need recovery days! Also just love bikes, so having this in addition to my MTB and road bikes just adds to my overall enjoyment.
I have experienced the situation you mentioned where the group ride speed goes faster than the motor cutoff and then I'm just handicapped by the heavier bike. But that's ok, I'll just catch them on the next hill :)
 
Has anyone had problems with the Creo motor going up hills in turbo mode? Does it need a specific cadence? What happens when you aren't pedaling that fast up the hill and want to rely on turbo to help? I have a Vado SL 5.0, which has the same motor, but when I use the turbo mode to go up hills, the motor will pause, then kick in again, and do this on and off up the hill. I find it very annoying. Someone suggested that maybe my cadence or my pedaling wasn't strong enough, but I thought there were sensors to compensate for that.
 
I
SKent said:
Has anyone had problems with the Creo motor going up hills in turbo mode? Does it need a specific cadence? What happens when you aren't pedaling that fast up the hill and want to rely on turbo to help? I have a Vado SL 5.0, which has the same motor, but when I use the turbo mode to go up hills, the motor will pause, then kick in again, and do this on and off up the hill. I find it very annoying. Someone suggested that maybe my cadence or my pedaling wasn't strong enough, but I thought there were sensors to compensate for that.
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I recently purchased my Creo. I've pedaled slowly in low cadence up hills. But I haven't experienced what you're suggesting. Sounds like something is wrong with yours.
 
I generally climb in either Eco or Sport, but I went out and did a stretch in turbo to see if I could replicate your problem. I looked at my Garmin data and I'm generally at a cadence between 60 and 80 and I never felt like the power cut out on me. The closest thing I might have experienced is that when I hit a flat spot I stopped pedaling for a second or two and then started again. Maybe there was a tiny delay in the power coming back on, but we're talking less than 1 second.

I don't think that's the same as what you've described.
 
I really fined Creo to be one of my best purchases, even if I'm not that slow on the flat only on climbs. I test the bike in all sorts of scenarios. Have riden the bike with amater riders whitch are on top level in our country.
This is for example the ride with my friend, who had a training day "only" 200W on the flat and around 300-400W on the short climbs. I have Eco set to 25% and Sport to 50%. I have to use 50% on the climbs just to keep up as he is 66kg rider vs my 80kg fat ass. On the flat I could turn off the assistance most of the time, as I was drafting almost the whole ride. Even with his moderate 200W we were doing around 38-40km/h most of the time. I got about 75% battery left when the ride was finished.
Interesting I did a small test with other even stronger friend, who is the best amater rider in the country and even with my 100% and assistance on 100% he could keep up with me no problem on a fairly steady climb of 6-8%. I calculated as I don't putt much power, only around 3.2W/kg (calculating the bike weight difference) on short 6km climb, I can putt out around 260W+240W(Creo)=500W With 80kg+5kg, that aquants to 5.88W/kg. On one climb, when fresh, he could putt out almost the same power as pro rider around 400W with 67kg= 6W/kg.
That is still not enough for a pro rider...., that could do this efforts for weeks on daily basis.
Winner and runner up at our Time Trial nationals, No.1 in the world and No.1 in the world under 23, Roglic and Pogacar, did an average around 412W with 66kg on 17km cours with 7km climb. That is 6.24W/kg, insane...:eek:
Yes funny the are all skinny duds around 66kg... 🤣
 

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tomyboy said:
I really fined Creo to be one of my best purchases, even if I'm not that slow on the flat only on climbs. I test the bike in all sorts of scenarios. Have riden the bike with amater riders whitch are on top level in our country. This is for example the ride with my friend, who had a training day "only" 200W on the flat and around 300-400W on the short climbs. I have Eco set to 25% and Sport to 50%. I have to use 50% on the climbs just to keep up as he is 66kg rider vs my 80kg fat ass. On the flat I could turn off the assistance most of the time, as I was drafting almost the whole ride. Even with his moderate 200W we were doing around 38-40km/h most of the time. I got about 75% battery left when the ride was finished.
Interesting I did a small test with other even stronger friend, who is the best amater rider in the country and even with my 100% and assistance on 100% he could keep up with me no problem on a fairly steady climb of 6-8%. I calculated as I don't putt much power, only around 3.2W/kg (calculating the bike weight difference) on short 6km climb, I can putt out around 260W+240W(Creo)=500W With 80kg+5kg, that aquants to 5.88W/kg. On one climb, when fresh, he could putt out almost the same power as pro rider around 400W with 67kg= 6W/kg.
That is still not enough for a pro rider...., that could do this efforts for weeks on daily basis.
Winner and runner up at our Time Trial nationals, No.1 in the world and No.1 in the world under 23, Roglic and Pogacar, did an average around 412W with 66kg on 17km cours with 7km climb. That is 6.24W/kg, insane...:eek:
Yes funny the are all skinny duds around 66kg... 🤣
Click to expand...

Nice ride... be sure to change your ride type category to EBike on Strava. ;)
 
I had another great ride on my Creo this past weekend. The ride was 97 miles (156km) and 4200ft vert (1280m) with an average speed of 21.4mph (34.5km/h). Many times on flat ground we were above the 28mph cutoff for the Creole which was challenging. I was riding with a small group of fast amateurs and ended up with about 33% of my battery left. The bike could have gone on without me… but I was more interested in a burrito at that point. Really loving this bike! And the burrito.
 
It was with the range extender (sorry, I should have noted that). However, I used 343w/hrs, meaning I just barely dipped into the range extender battery. At a slightly slower speed, I could have finished the ride with just the main battery. As easily as this bike pedals with the motor off, it would have been pretty easy to finish without any battery. My experiences tell me that Specialized has actually underestimated the range on this bike ... which seems the opposite of many other eBike manufacturers.
 
Question: Is anyone else having trouble getting the Creo to show actual 'rider power' on their Garmin? (I'm using the Garmin 830)
I've tried using the Fake Channel on the app, set to Rider Power. I either get one of two readings: a static power that doesn't change, like 100w --- or I get the combined motor+rider power reading. I've not been able to to just isolate my actual power input. Any thoughts or tips would be appreciated!
 
Interesting. I have the Vado SL 5.0, which has the same motor. I did a 26 mile ride with 2000 feet of climbing and only had 38% of the battery left. Yes the bike is about 7 lbs heavier than the Creo, but is that the reason for the difference in efficiency? I did use sport and turbo modes quite a bit, and I assume you did not use a lot of assist on your ride.
 
Interesting. Were you riding alone? Since your bike has flat bars, you are likely sitting more upright than you might on a curly bar bike. Coming from a road racing background, I may ride in a more aero position. Aero is everything at speed.
I suppose I should be giving more credit to the people I was riding with. I was tucked into a small group of really strong riders, so I gained a lot of efficiency there. Other the other hand, we were doing between 25-28mph for long stretches so I was still working hard. I kept the bike in Eco mode for all but a few tough sections (about 15-20 miles of the ride was on gravel). My Eco is set to 30%-30%.
My heart rate data indicates that I spent 53 minutes at Threshold and 2:33 minutes at Tempo... so it was a pretty strenuous ride.
This bike is still new enough to me (about 1 month) that I'm still figuring out all the factors that go into best utilizing this motor/battery combo Specialized has built.
 
To get rider power on your Garmin you have to tell it to disable the fake channel. I don't know why it works this way, but it does. Whenever I select rider power it just tells me I'm producing around 100 watts all the time regardless of the power I'm actually putting out.

The Vado SL weighs 7 lbs more than the Creo?????? That's a big difference and I'm surprised it's that much. I would have guessed maybe 3 lbs.

It's interesting the impact the speed limiter has on battery life. I did a solo ride on Saturday and at various times I was going anywhere from 35 to 65 km/hr. - so the motor turned off. A few times on the flats I was going a bit quicker and in the 37-40 km/hr. range and not using any battery at all. But if I had the 45 km/hr. limit obviously I'd still be using battery, probably going a slight bit faster.
 
Captain Slow said:
But if I had the 45 km/hr. limit obviously I'd still be using battery, probably going a slight bit faster.
Click to expand...
I don't think so. The whole idea behind the limiter is to cut the power off above the assistance limit. On Class 1 e-bikes (especially the 25 km/h ones) you "hit the wall" beyond the limiter speed, meaning no support is given to the crank.
 
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