Specialized Turbo Vado SL: An Incredible E-Bike (User Club)

[Ebikelife72]

I was able to get in some riding today, rain be damned. The ride went well. I did some road riding and climbed a lot of hills, a route I’ve ridden many times with various bikes. I’m starting to get an idea of the real world range capabilities as it pertains to my riding. I currently have around 44 miles on the bike and have 57% battery left, down from the first charge of 100%. This was a mixture of Eco on the stock setting, detuned Eco, stock Sport, battery friendly Sport, and the motor off. This is a very acceptable range and likely can do better with very little effort. I rode a lot in the battery friendly Sport setting today and really liked the performance and the battery took less of a hit than I expected. After today’s ride I’m leaning toward keeping it. It was a very fun ride and I definitely felt the benefit of the motor over my Sirrus. Hopefully I can get a long ride in this weekend with panniers and really see what the bike can do.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

I was able to get in some riding today, rain be damned. The ride went well. I did some road riding and climbed a lot of hills, a route I’ve ridden many times with various bikes. I’m starting to get an idea of the real world range capabilities as it pertains to my riding. I currently have around 44 miles on the bike and have 57% battery left, down from the first charge of 100%. This was a mixture of Eco on the stock setting, detuned Eco, stock Sport, battery friendly Sport, and the motor off. This is a very acceptable range and likely can do better with very little effort. I rode a lot in the battery friendly Sport setting today and really liked the performance and the battery took less of a hit than I expected. After today’s ride I’m leaning toward keeping it. It was a very fun ride and I definitely felt the benefit of the motor over my Sirrus. Hopefully I can get a long ride in this weekend with panniers and really see what the bike can do.

It will be interesting to see how assist usage and battery range evolve for a strong rider like you.

Enjoy!

 

[Stefan Mikes]

@Ebikelife72: Sorry if what I say is obvious. You are of course aware that shifting the colour dots in the Tune chart allows you setting your own assistance levels, aren't you.


The Battery Friendly SPORT is 50/50%. I might have written early my favourite setting was 55/55% (assist 1x, max motor power 132 W). Quite close to yours, isn't it

 

[Ebikelife72]

@Ebikelife72: Sorry if what I say is obvious. You are of course aware that shifting the colour dots in the Tune chart allows you setting your own assistance levels, aren't you.


The Battery Friendly SPORT is 50/50%. I might have written early my favourite setting was 55/55% (assist 1x, max motor power 132 W). Quite close to yours, isn't it

Yes, I know how to custom tune the motor. The 50/50 is quite good and probably the best setting for my uses. The Eco at 35/35 is ok but still oddly introduces drag when pedaling at around 17mph with the motor off and then turning it on which is the opposite of what usually happens.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

The Eco at 35/35 is ok but still oddly introduces drag when pedaling at around 17mph with the motor off and then turning it on which is the opposite of what usually happens.

Strange (but I cannot deny your observation).

My long time experience has taught me an electric bike motor loves to be spinning but hates to be underpowered. I used to set my SL 1.1 motor to very low assistance when I had to ride with extremely slow traditional cyclists. The motor was going on and off as if it were hesitant whether to assist or not. (In such situations, I preferred riding in OFF mode). I personally think your 50/50% selection is where the SL motor "feels well"

P.S. I had a look into my Strava records. I usually ride solo at 55/55% in the warm season. However, I used to modify my settings for longer rides involving the hills:

• 35/100% allowed me riding 74+ miles with a Range Extender
• 40/100% gave me the range of 70+ miles with a Range Extender
• 50/100% gave me at least 66 miles with a RE
• 55/55% gave the range of 72 miles with a RE.

It is interesting the 55/55% used the same battery charge as 35/100% but I really felt the e-bike response on the hills with 35/100!

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

The Eco at 35/35 is ok but still oddly introduces drag when pedaling at around 17mph with the motor off and then turning it on which is the opposite of what usually happens.

Never noticed that, and I ride in OFF a lot. Will have to look for it next time.

Today's mostly OFF hill ride as reported by RideWithGPS (white background) and the Specialized app (black):

Resorted to ECO on some of the steepest pitches and used SPORT in brief spurts to keep the stronger accelerations knee-friendly. The Micro Tune was a short experiment at 0-40%, and the tiny sliver of TURBO was user error.

Riding mostly in OFF and ECO held battery drain at roughly 1%/mile — not too bad for a ride averaging 72 vertical feet/mile.

Never noticed any motor drag in OFF, but the climbs in OFF were probably slower than 17 mph.

Being a so-so rider at best, had to slog up the steep stuff in my lowest gears to pull this off. (Really glad I reduced my chainring here.) You and @MartsEbike would probably have averaged a lot faster than 11.5 mph on this route.

 

[Ebikelife72]

@Jeremy McCreary I don’t notice any drag with the motor off. What I notice is when I’m riding with the motor off at around 15-17mph and then turning it the motor on in Eco mode. The bike actually feels slightly harder to pedal when I do this. This is the opposite of what usually happens on an e-bike where you’re pedaling along with the motor on and then turn it off. It’s pretty odd.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

A new experience
Guys, whenever you use tubeless wheels, have a suitable compressor at home and a CO2 booster pump on the trail (the latter might not be necessary, just in case). I don't own either...

I decided to replenish the sealant for the second time last evening. The first replenishment took place in August this year, and was uneventful. Yesterday, I relieved the pressure in the rear wheel using the valve core, then removed the valve core and injected 60 ml of sealant into the tyre then re-inserted the valve core. As I started re-inflating the thing, some sealant appeared between the rim and the bead and I could not inflate the wheel! Gave it several minutes, and then working hard, I managed to seal and inflate the wheel. So far so good. However, repeating the operation for the front wheel, I could notice the tyre bead slipped off the rim! It was impossible to fix the thing without the compressor or a CO2 booster...

I admit I am a poor bike mechanic This morning, I totally disassembled the tubeless system on the front wheel, washed everything and installed a Schwalbe Marathon Winter Plus studded tyre in the tubed setup. I may need to get rid of tubeless for the rear wheel when it starts freezing anyway...

I could also compare a tubeless folding gravel tyre (Tracer Pro) to a heavy, wired and puncture protected one (Winter Plus). The folding tyre was soft, supple, a real pleasure to work on. The wired tyre was as hard as the hippopotamus skin!

 

[2wheelsgood]

I can recommend the Joe Blow booster pump - expensive but it certainly feels like a quality item.

Great for tubeless.

JOEBLOW® BOOSTER

Half air compressor – Half pump. The JoeBlow® Booster pump just made it easier to install tubeless tires. This pump has an integrated aluminum air chamber that stores an air charge of one liter, up to 160psi / 11 bar, to quickly fill your tire and ensure the proper installation on a tubeless...

www.topeak.com

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I can recommend the Joe Blow booster pump - expensive but it certainly feels like a quality item.

Great for tubeless.

JOEBLOW® BOOSTER

Half air compressor – Half pump. The JoeBlow® Booster pump just made it easier to install tubeless tires. This pump has an integrated aluminum air chamber that stores an air charge of one liter, up to 160psi / 11 bar, to quickly fill your tire and ensure the proper installation on a tubeless...

www.topeak.com

Thank you! Will certainly invest in the thing (or, a Schwalbe Tire Booster) before the warm season starts!

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Being a so-so rider at best, had to slog up the steep stuff in my lowest gears to pull this off. (Really glad I reduced my chainring here.) You and @MartsEbike would probably have averaged a lot faster than 11.5 mph on this route.

I hereby rescind the "so-so" part of that and demote myself to pathetic+.

Just got back from a group ride of 35 mi with 2,230 ft of elevation gain at an average moving speed of 13.5 mph. And I can barely walk.

My fellow riders were mostly over-60 roadies. No problem keeping up on the flats with the SL on OFF, but used a lot of SPORT and Micro Tune in the 40-60% range on the hills and still had a hard time keeping up. Also got out-pedaled on the long descents due to my reduced 40t chainring and semi-upright posture.

Nice bunch of folks, though. Good conversation over coffee and pastries at the finish, and the only one who gave me a hard time about struggling on an ebike was me.

 

[Watana Bob]

Pathetic + ??? I don’t think so Jeremy! I would rate your ride at Animal+ That distance and elevation gain in that timeframe at your age, pure animal status in my book.
i would give my left one to be able to maintain 168 watts on a ride that long.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Pathetic + ??? I don’t think so Jeremy! I would rate your ride at Animal+ That distance and elevation gain in that timeframe at your age, pure animal status in my book.
i would give my left one to be able to maintain 168 watts on a ride that long.

Very kind. You're right, of course. I certainly felt "pathetic+" relative to the roadies right after the ride, but my performance could have been a lot worse.

Learned an important lesson about SL tuning from this ride — one I knew I in theory but failed to apply when trying to keep up with much stronger riders.

The mistake: Rode in the default Universal preset out of habit. The tuning format above is the usual E/M, where E is the "ease" setting, and M is the "motor power" in current Specialized-speak.

The lesson: Should have ridden against this bunch in my custom Racing preset instead. This is just the stock Universal preset with all M values bumped to 100.

This Racing preset would have given me access to full motor power (Px = 240W on the SL) in any assist mode. Instead, the Universal preset limited me to at most 0.35 Px in ECO and 0.60 Px in SPORT. That just wasn't enough help on the hills involved.

Too bad, cuz the main battery might well have been enough to use Racing throughout. Next time.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Very kind. You're right, of course. I certainly felt "pathetic+" relative to the roadies right after the ride, but my performance could have been a lot worse.

Jeremy: Your leg output at age of 73 is over 160 W. Mine is less than 80 W at 63. You should be proud of yourself!

The mistake: Rode in the default Universal preset out of habit. The tuning format above is the usual E/M, where E is the "ease" setting, and M is the "motor power" in current Specialized-speak.

That's what I was trying to tell you and @Ebikelife72. When you are climbing, your body tries to produce more leg output. If your M is set to 100, the motor will dynamically respond to your demand by producing more power exactly when you need it! In such case, the E should be set to reflect the rider's leg power capacity (the stronger the reader, the less E but do not go below 30% really).

The dilemmas of both of you made me check the App settings for ECO, SPORT and TURBO in Battery Friendly, Universal and Racing presets for both my Vado and Vado SL. When I was playing, I inadvertently left the big Vado settings at Racing The first ride this morning was for some groceries. I could not understand why my Vado was that fast and easy to pedal in SPORT! Later, it turned out it was 75/100% for the full power motor!

 

[Ebikelife72]

I rode 22 miles today. It was supposed to be a 52 mile road route but I had to abort due to high winds and heavy traffic making for a pretty dangerous ride. I’ve learned that Eco mode is definitely not providing me any benefit, it just doesn’t give me any noticeable assistance. I rode in Sport and with the motor off and used 30% of the battery with a little over 1000’ of elevation gain. Sport definitely provides noticeable assistance and was nice on the climbs. What is a bit concerning was I believe I heard some strange rattles coming from the motor at times. I only heard the noise while the motor was engaged. I’m going to put it on my bike stand tomorrow to see if I can reproduce the sound.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

That's what I was trying to tell you and @Ebikelife72. When you are climbing, your body tries to produce more leg output. If your M is set to 100, the motor will dynamically respond to your demand by producing more power exactly when you need it! In such case, the E should be set to reflect the rider's leg power capacity (the stronger the reader, the less E but do not go below 30% really).

Practical difference between assist modes 60/60 and 60/100 on the SL1?
To see, I used my interactive Specialized PAS model to graph out motor power (Pm) as a function of rider power (Pr) in both modes and compared the graphs.

Graph for 60/60 mode: Rider power (Pr) plots on the x-axis, mechanical power at the crank on the y-axis. The blue plot is motor power (Pm) as a function of Pr. Note its "ramp and flat" structure.

The purple plot is total power at the crank (Pt = Pr + Pm) versus Pr. The red plot, y = Pr, shows the rider's contribution to Pt. For steadily increasing Pr, the blue and purple plots would also reflect Pm and Pt over time.

The orange vertical always marks Prs, the saturation rider power at which Pm "saturates" — i.e., stops increasing with Pr. At any Pr above Prs, any increase in Pt will be due to the rider alone.

The gray vertical marks a particular Pr of interest (Pri). We'll use it to mark Pri = 200W and see how Pm and Pt change there. Note the relative positions of the orange and gray verticals in 60/60 mode. The motor is already saturated at Pri = 200W. But it won't be in 60/100 mode, and the orange-gray arrangement will change to reflect that.

Adjustable model parameters: Px = 240W is the highest mechanical power the SL1's motor can deliver. B = 1.8 is this motor's boost factor. These values are baked into the SL1.

Variables E and M are respectively the ease and (accessible) motor power settings applied as a pair when the rider selects an assist mode like ECO or SPORT. Both run from 0 to 100. In writing 60/60 and 60/100 for our assist modes of interest, we've already been using the accepted E/M shorthand.

The product (E / 100) • B sets the slope of the Pm ramp, while the saturation motor power Ps = (M / 100) • Px sets the height of the Pm flat.

The Pm ramp and flat always meet at the orange vertical marking Prs. In any mode like 60/60 or 35/35 with M = E, Prs = Px / B = 133W. This value is also baked into the SL1.

Now for 60/100 mode
Below I repeated the 60/60 graph and then put the 60/100 graph below it for comparison. Their underlying Px, B, E, and Pri parameters are the same.

Graph for 60/100 mode: Since E and B are unchanged, the Pm ramp has the same slope as before. But the Pm flat is now higher and starts at farther to the right at higher Pr. In fact, Pm and Pt are higher in 60/100 mode than in 60/60 at any Pr above the 60/60 Prs of 133W. This is one major difference between the two modes.

In 60/100 mode, the motor now saturates at Prs = 222W, well beyond the 60/60 Prs of 133W. To get to the Pm flat now, you'll have to work much harder. Our reference Pri of 200W is now just short of saturation.

At any Pr > 222W, Pm will be constant at Ps, and any further increase in Pt will have to come from the rider, as no additional Pm will be forthcoming.

Am I saturated yet?
Easy to tell if you're monitoring Pr on the TCU or in the app: If Pr > 133W on an SL1 in any M = E assist mode, you're already saturated.

To get more Pm once saturated — say, on a hill — you'll have to change to a mode with a higher M and accept the E that comes with it. Micro Tune lets you adjust M in steps of 10 with M = E at each step.

If you're in a mode with M > E, as in 35/70 or 60/100, and can do fractions in your head, your Prs will be (M / E) • 133W. Since modes with M < E are rarely used, this Prs will generally be harder than 133W.

So if M is twice E for any M, as in 35/70, you'll saturate at Prs = 2 • 133W = 266W. If you don't want to work that hard to get all the help the motor will give at your chosen M, find a way to reduce M / E.

This could be a reason to prefer a 35/50 ECO mode over a 35/70. You'd get an easier Prs of 190W and a smaller saturation motor power (lower Pm flat) than in 35/70, but it would also be easier on the battery.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

This could be a reason to prefer a 35/50 ECO mode over a 35/70 — a much easier Prs of 190W. You'd get a smaller saturation motor power (lower Pm flat) than in 35/70, but it would easier to reach and easier on the battery, too.

A very convincing reasoning.

In your calculations, you assume the rider is a strong person (like you or Ebikelife72). Now, look at me. My average leg power for a ride is 60 W or less, I can sustain 100 W when I need it, and can pump up to 290 W uphill. A 100% M serves me well!

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

A very convincing reasoning.

In your calculations, you assume the rider is a strong person (like you or Ebikelife72). Now, look at me. My average leg power for a ride is 60 W or less, I can sustain 100 W when I need it, and can pump up to 290 W uphill. A 100% M serves me well!

No assumptions on my part. Based on the factory tunings I've seen, the Specialized mid-drive PAS appears to have been designed with M >= E assist modes in mind. Modes with M < E appear to be rare in practice.

Outside special situations like starting out, the saturation rider power Prs = (M / E) • ( Px / B). For the Mahle 1.1 SL motor in the SL1 and Creo1, Px = 240W, B = 1.8, and Prs = Px / B = 133W whenever M = E.

Short of setting M < E, this is the minimum Prs on the SL1 and Creo1. Since the SL2, Creo2, and full-powered Vado also have minimum Prs values very close to 133W, this would seem to be by design.

With M > E, you have to pedal even harder than 133W to saturate an SL1. To satuate below that, you'd need to set M < E. But then saturation motor power M • Px would also be reduced.

Not sure how to play that trade-off for a rider who can't sustain 133W, but you're living proof that you don't need to saturate an SL1 to get excellent use out of it!

 

[Stefan Mikes]

The E < M setting certainly works for me I could see values >100 W on today's ride because of high assistance and your "Carrot Effect"

The carrots:

• High assistance
• 13% Imperial Stout waiting for me at a brewery
• -4 C outside

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

View attachment 187434
The E < M setting certainly works for me I could see values >100 W on today's ride because of high assistance and your "Carrot Effect"

The carrots:

• High assistance
• 13% Imperial Stout waiting for me at a brewery
• -4 C outside

Based on everything I've read on EBR and the one riding group I've experienced, coffee and pastries seems to be another highly potent and nearly universal carrot. Works for me, but my dentist and internist, not so much.