Stefan Mikes
Gravel e-biker
- Region
- Europe
- City
- Mazovia, PL
Is it Tasmania?Sometimes a single summer day here may experience a combination of dry, wet, cold and hot
Specialized Turbo Vado SL: An Incredible E-Bike (User Club)
- Thread starter Stefan Mikes
- Start date
I did consider the Sirrus 6 and the Diverge STR, but Specialized reduced the price of the SL and the rest as they say is history!
For me, riding the SL is something that I look forward to, it's an enjoyable experience.
Stefan Mikes
Gravel e-biker
- Region
- Europe
- City
- Mazovia, PL
@RRCV:
Sorry for asking, My Dad lived in Tasmania, then Adelaide between 1950 and 1957. He was first working as a carpenter on a dam construction in Tasmania, so it must have been raining there He never mentioned summer raining for his Adelaide years. When he was working on our homestead in Poland in 1970s, he installed something very Australian: it was a water tank on a scaffolding that was heated by the radiation of the Sun, so we had hot water for washing in the Summer
Also, we had David Berry of Brisbane for several years in the EBR Forums with his daily reports.
All that made me believe Australia was hot and dry in the Summer Now, I'm learning something new from you!
Sorry for asking, My Dad lived in Tasmania, then Adelaide between 1950 and 1957. He was first working as a carpenter on a dam construction in Tasmania, so it must have been raining there
He never mentioned summer raining for his Adelaide years. When he was working on our homestead in Poland in 1970s, he installed something very Australian: it was a water tank on a scaffolding that was heated by the radiation of the Sun, so we had hot water for washing in the Summer Also, we had David Berry of Brisbane for several years in the EBR Forums with his daily reports.
All that made me believe Australia was hot and dry in the Summer
Now, I'm learning something new from you! Ebikelife72
Active Member
- Region
- USA
Some more observations… I rode the bike today and determined my 30/30 Eco setting is pretty useless. It still feels like it introduces drag as opposed to support. The stock setting of 35/35 is better but still doesn’t quite give me the same performance of my much lighter Sirrus. I rode up a pretty good hill that I’ve ridden many times on my Sirrus and used the stock Sport mode and that seemed to give me the closest in performance to the Sirrus. I’m in good biking shape which makes sense that I have to put the relatively low powered motor in Sport to equal my own power on a light weight non e-bike. I’m not sure what this ultimately means. Maybe I don’t need a low powered e-bike, or maybe I need the SL2. I owned the Vado 3 IGH with the 50nm motor and it seemed fine, though it has a different motor than the SL2.
I don’t really want to ride the SL in Sport mode all the time and bump to Turbo for the hills as it would deplete the battery to fast. Right now the SL is only easier to ride than the Sirrus when on Turbo mode and pretty much the same on Sport. I really like the bike but in my current condition and for the foreseeable future provided my health stays the same, I might not need it. I have 28 days left to decide.
I don’t really want to ride the SL in Sport mode all the time and bump to Turbo for the hills as it would deplete the battery to fast. Right now the SL is only easier to ride than the Sirrus when on Turbo mode and pretty much the same on Sport. I really like the bike but in my current condition and for the foreseeable future provided my health stays the same, I might not need it. I have 28 days left to decide.
Jeremy McCreary
Very Stable Genius
- Region
- USA
- City
- Carlsbad, CA
Are you sure the bike's still returnable for a full refund?
When I ordered my SL, I was told by the employee who helped me — the service manager, no less — that I could try it for 30 days risk-free. Confirmed several times before ordering, as I wasn't at all sure at the time that the SL was powerful enough for my legs on local hills.
Then I dealt with the store manager at pickup time. He was reluctant to let me ride it even 5 mi to the top of the nearest suitable test hill. With any more of a test, said he could no longer sell the SL as new and therefore couldn't offer a full refund, only a credit.
The SL passed the test well enough that I took the chance, and soooo glad I did!
Not sure who was lying in this transaction, but I haven't gone back that LBS since. Luckily, have another authorized Specialized dealer I trust nearby.
Last edited:
GAJ
Active Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Santa Rosa, CA
I'd return it because when you need a lightweight e'bike they will be lighter and have more range.
Ebikelife72
Active Member
- Region
- USA
Yes, I ordered directly from Specialized and they have the 30 day return policy on their site, I've actually had to use it once before. It was shipped to my local dealer who does not have a return policy. They actually suggested that I order it from Specialized for the return policy.
Rás Cnoic
Hillrider
- Region
- United Kingdom
- City
- Dartmoor
So my observation in comparing my Vado SL and my analog bike is that the Vado SL can be sluggish unassisted in comparison to my analogue bike. I mean in one sense it's obvious - weight & gravity. My SL on the road is probably around 38lbs, my analogue is 27lbs. I find if the road is smooth, level or downhill and without a headwind the SL rides easily and the weight isn't noticeable. But once the road creeps up, straight away it's sluggish and not much fun to ride. In comparison my ordinary bike is easy to go up short hills and still feels 'fun'. Of course if the gradient gets steep that fun disappears & there is no magic button to kick in a motor.
A second factor is that the SL frame is alloy & with a huge tube encasing the battery. This makes for a very stiff and pretty 'dead' ride. Again in comparison my ordinary bike and its steel tubing has a spring to it that is very noticeable. And although at 27lbs it's a fairly heavy analogue bike compared to the compliant carbon fibre 17lbs road bikes of today. They must just fly up the hills.
The third area is of course tyre pressure and rolling resistance. There are whole libraries dedicated to this with current opinions being wider and with lower pressure than even ten years ago. But play around with this and it might surprise you the difference a change in PSI makes.
Stefan Mikes
Gravel e-biker
- Region
- Europe
- City
- Mazovia, PL
Set the ECO to 35/100% to see the difference. The second number rewards for good pedalling at the cadence around 80 rpm.
Ebikelife72
Active Member
- Region
- USA
I definitely need to try this as I don't completely understand these settings no matter how much I've read about it. How do you think the battery consumption would be at the 35/100 settings?
Stefan Mikes
Gravel e-biker
- Region
- Europe
- City
- Mazovia, PL
The same as at the 55/55% but the e-bike will react dynamically to your pedalling effort. If you decide it is too much, change the second number to 80%, and then you can play freely with it.
Jeremy McCreary
Very Stable Genius
- Region
- USA
- City
- Carlsbad, CA
Interesting. No one ever mentioned that online advantage to me — even though I'd voiced my serious concern about adequate power repeatedly. They could see my 70-something age and bird legs and knew the topography. If they thought I was silly to worry, they didn't say so.
Granted, I'd already let my strong preference for yellow be known, and there were no size 56 yellow 5.0 EQs available online at the time. (They dug up mine in a Texas warehouse.)
But there were some brushed aluminum SLs online then as I recall. If those differed significantly in returnabilty, they should've told me so.
Ebikelife72
Active Member
- Region
- USA
On line vs in store returnability is an odd, store dependent thing. I'm not really sure how it works but the guys at my local shop insinuated that if I ordered on line and had it shipped to them they'd still make some profit for the sale. All E-bikes must be shipped to and picked up at a store whereas the non E-bikes can be shipped directly to your home. The return is very simple whether the bike is shipped to your home or to a dealer, you just take the bike to a dealer of your choice and they'll handle the return after you first contact Specialized and set up the return. I hate to return anything and hope to not have to with this bike. The weather is going to suck the next couple days but I plan to mess with the settings more on Thursday and see if this bike makes sense for me. Again, it's a great bike but I might not need it and will stick with the Sirrus for any rides that I'd use the SL for and use the Tero for everything else. For a bike fit person the low powered SL type bikes may not make sense. I'm 52, I'm sure an SL will make more sense in 20 years where light weight for portability purposes will be what I need. Of course they'll likely all be light weight and full power by then.
Jeremy McCreary
Very Stable Genius
- Region
- USA
- City
- Carlsbad, CA
Not for everyone, but if you don't mind some math and interactive graphs, this might help you get a better feel for the big picture:
Visualizing and exploring the power-sensing PAS in Specialized mid-drives — an interactive graphical model
For our more math-minded Specialized mid-drive riders, here's an interactive graphical model of your bike's tunable power-sensing pedal assist system -- hereafter, just "PAS". The model doesn't cover complex PAS responses to transient events like starting out or approaching PAS cut-off speed...
forums.electricbikereview.com
You can use the interactive graph to preview assist mode tunings under consideration.Pay particular attention to the quantity I called "saturation rider power" (Prs).
Since you're clearly a strong rider, that 100 setting could have a significant adverse effect on battery range. To understand why, see the post linked above.
Last edited:
Stefan Mikes
Gravel e-biker
- Region
- Europe
- City
- Mazovia, PL
@Ebikelife72: You cannot compare apples to oranges to potatoes. No use to compare your Sirrus to Vado SL to Tero X. The bike weight is not the only factor to affect a bike performance.
Your Tero X gives max 3.2x assistance with max power of 470 W. Your Vado SL offers max 1.8x boost with max power of 240 W. Meaning, the Tero motor is almost twice as powerful as the one on the Vado SL. Next, the battery on the Tero is 710 Wh, while the battery on Vado SL is just 320 Wh (less than half capacity).
In simple terms:
Jeremy justly suggests that using SL assistance such as 35/100% would increase the battery consumption. Yes. You cannot expect getting the performance free. I recommend starting with SL 35/100% because I think you need more assistance when you really need it, especially on climbs and against headwind. Eventually, you'd find your sweet point. The second number (Max Motor Power cap) affects both the performance and the battery use.
Your Tero X gives max 3.2x assistance with max power of 470 W. Your Vado SL offers max 1.8x boost with max power of 240 W. Meaning, the Tero motor is almost twice as powerful as the one on the Vado SL. Next, the battery on the Tero is 710 Wh, while the battery on Vado SL is just 320 Wh (less than half capacity).
In simple terms:
- 35/35% ECO mode on the Tero X 5.0 provides 112 W assistance per your 100 W leg input, with the maximum motor power of 164.5 W
- 35/35% ECO mode on the Vado SL gives 63 W assist per your 100 W leg power with the maximum motor power of 84 W.
Jeremy justly suggests that using SL assistance such as 35/100% would increase the battery consumption. Yes. You cannot expect getting the performance free. I recommend starting with SL 35/100% because I think you need more assistance when you really need it, especially on climbs and against headwind. Eventually, you'd find your sweet point. The second number (Max Motor Power cap) affects both the performance and the battery use.
Ebikelife72
Active Member
- Region
- USA
I'm well aware of all of this but disagree about not comparing. The purpose of getting the SL was to provide a similar performance to my Sirrus but with added benefit of being able to use the motor on more difficult climbs. The issue I'm having is that in order to have a similar performance to the Sirrus I have to use a higher level of assistance than expected. With this level of assistance I will deplete the battery very quickly and then I'm stuck with a bike that, while easier to ride than most E-bikes with the motor off, it's still quite sluggish compared to the Sirrus or light bikes. I often go on 70-80 mile rides and if I have to run higher assistance on flats to be equal to the speed and ease of the Sirrus, I will likely run out of battery after 30 miles leaving quite a ways to go without any assistance. As previously mentioned, I climbed a hill in Sport mode which performed the same as the Sirrus in terms of speed and ease. I was really hoping Eco would take away the weight of the bike and provide a similar performance to the Sirrus but it doesn't.
My point in comparing my bikes is an effort to see if the SL has a place in my collection. I've got very specific use cases for the Tero as well as the Sirrus. My want for the SL was to bridge the gap between the two and I'm not sure that it does. I'm still wanting to make it work which is why I'm trying to better understand the power delivery. Again, it's a great bike, but with my current fitness it might not make a big enough difference between it and the Sirrus to justify keeping it.
Stefan Mikes
Gravel e-biker
- Region
- Europe
- City
- Mazovia, PL
I certainly cannot change your mindset
@MartsEbike: Could you share your experience from the 72 mile very hilly ride? I'm sure the details including the fact you mostly ride OFF, and have a Range Extender would shed a light on how Vado SL should be properly used. I'd like to see the assistance charts from the Specialize App if possible!
@MartsEbike: Could you share your experience from the 72 mile very hilly ride? I'm sure the details including the fact you mostly ride OFF, and have a Range Extender would shed a light on how Vado SL should be properly used. I'd like to see the assistance charts from the Specialize App if possible!
Last edited:
Rás Cnoic
Hillrider
- Region
- United Kingdom
- City
- Dartmoor
I understand what you mean. What sort of terrain are you cycling over Ebikelife? I'm in a steep hilly area. The SL motor (and low gearing) means I can ride a lot further then unassisted/analogue bike as the gradients are just too exhausting at my fitness level without help. But if I lived in a flat area I'd have no real need for the SL. There are lighter alternatives, mostly drop bar road bikes and most with the Mahle hub motors, which seems to be fine on hills as long as the gradient isn't too steep and the bikes can be several pounds lighter. A carbon fibre Orbea Gain (Di2) for instance is around 11.5Kg/24.5lbs but like all road bikes, the higher the spec, (carbon frame & wheels and Ultrgra groupset etc level) then the higher the price and lower the weight!
MartsEbike
Well-Known Member
- Region
- United Kingdom
- City
- Dunstable
I certainly cannot change your mindset
@MartsEbike: Could you share your experience from the 72 mile very hilly ride? I'm sure the details including the fact you mostly ride OFF, and have a Range Extender would shed a light on how Vado SL should be properly used. I'd like to see the assistance charts from the Specialize App if possible!
Specialized App wasn't used for my 70 mile ride so I don't have any charts to show assistance!
But I also own a Vado SL and a Sirrus, and there's a good 5kg difference between the two bikes, so for sure the Sirrus feels lighter and a bit more nimble. My older ebike is a 35kg Frey EX - this is the bike I rode more regularly, so from my perspective the 15kg Vado SL feels extremely light, but if you're use to riding lighter traditional bikes you may see this extra weight as a disadvantage. Much of this will depend on the abilities of the rider.
I would have thought if you can ride the Sirrus for long distances (70-80 miles) then you'd be tempted to ride the SL with the power "Off" most of the time. I average (with good legs) around 17-20 mph with the motor off, plus on my EU spec bike the motor cuts out at 15.5mph, regardless of power level. So even leaving it in Eco means anything above that speed is done under your own steam. This in itself greatly extends battery life/range. The real benefits of the SL are found at 50-75% into your ride, when you've depleted your energy and need assistance, and also on hills in-between... That's where it shines, short tests rides won't really show its capabilities. You should easily see ranges of 50-60 miles, with a range extender adding another 30 miles. This is dependent on steep hills - Turbo mode does use the power pretty quickly, so use it sparingly. Needless to say, by riding unpowered you're only limited by what your legs can provide.
Ultimately, there's two ways to go about it, you either focus on weight and your own abilities, or a focus on assistance with a battery that can provide decent range - but trying to have the best of both worlds is difficult/expensive to find. The SL is probably about as good as it gets at this price point.
Myself, I find it a great bike - it's allowed me to do miles I couldn't do otherwise, but I was never much of a traditional bike rider!
Similar threads
