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

[kahn]

The 2022s do come with the Mastermind TCU, which can do much of what the old TCD did (although not as practical due to the location on the top tube); the TCU display is configurable using Mission Control and you can cycle the displays using the top (F1) button on the handlebar control. But I mostly use my Garmin 1030+ when riding, as it can display anything that I really need (or would like) to know.

The location of the Mastermind TCU is an accident waiting to happen.

 

[BEC111]

Unassisted and Low Assistance Experiences

I had to cover pretty a distance on my Vado SL with two of my friends (of both sexes) yesterday. For various reasons, they are very slow traditional riders. As we rode with the tailwind on the pavement, I switched the assistance to OFF and rode unassisted, surprising myself my bad legs were better than theirs! In other situations (upwind, gravel/sand), I was using 20/20% SL assistance. As my "cruising leg power" is about 100 W, the motor was assisting me with 36 W, and the motor power cap was just 48 W!

The behaviour of the motor was surprising. With higher assistance, the motor produces a soft, continuous whine as I am pedalling. With the 20% assistance, the sound of the motor was intermittent as if the motor was giving me short continual "injections" of power but could not work continuously at the low assistance.

Anyone could notice that? @BioWheel: You seem to ride your VSL at low assistance. Observations?

Interesting. As I mentioned in another thread, I hadn’t though of riding with no assistance when I needed to ride slowly. But, when I’m riding really slowly, in ECO, I feel/hear the assist kicking in in the manner you describe. I hadn’t though about it much, so your description is very helpful.

Also, when I went on a group ride with my E-bike Lovers group last year, i screwed up my previous night’s charge and had no battery charge. So I did the whole ride with no assist - 25 miles or so - with a bunch of folks on e-bikes. I was able to keep up because of my Vado SL is so light.

 

[rochrunner]

The behaviour of the motor was surprising. With higher assistance, the motor produces a soft, continuous whine as I am pedalling. With the 20% assistance, the sound of the motor was intermittent as if the motor was giving me short continual "injections" of power but could not work continuously at the low assistance.

Totally a speculation, but there could be a "minimum" level of assistance that it can provide, so if you are using a low assist percentage and pedaling at low rider power, it just cuts out rather than trying to add just a few watts.

 

[mjh5]

Totally a speculation, but there could be a "minimum" level of assistance that it can provide, so if you are using a low assist percentage and pedaling at low rider power, it just cuts out rather than trying to add just a few watts.

I've had the situation where the motor briefly cut out when I have accidentally gone into too low a gear and so am pedaling against essentially no resistance. The new Vado Sl have SRAM thumb shifters which are both one way so I have sometimes mixed them up coming from a bike with twist shifters.

 

[mschwett]

Totally a speculation, but there could be a "minimum" level of assistance that it can provide, so if you are using a low assist percentage and pedaling at low rider power, it just cuts out rather than trying to add just a few watts.

i believe the motor is capable of very low assistance levels, but the “maximum” assist setting seems to override the ratio. when trying a range of combinations to confirm the relationship between assist percentage and input/output power, i found that 10/10 produced no assist at all, but 10/100 behaved as expected. in theory 10/10 should have produced 24 watts of motor output and 30 watts of input, but it produced none.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Doug & Mark: Your reasoning sounds very convincing.
I have also found the 35/100 assistance is very good for the warm season rides (when the rider is in no hurry). My data show that the 35/100 assistance consumes about the same amount of battery charge as 55/55 (for me!) but the ride becomes very "bikey", natural. For instance, I can slowly but surely climb an overpass in low gear at such an assistance level.

 

[mogulman]

Since I'm waiting around for my bike and thinking about it a lot. Any suggestions on tuning the % support/power?

Not sure what the defaults are. Maybe it is already set this way. Also I haven't used the Specialized system.

What I think I'm looking for, based on my eMTB (Giant), is:

• Low: Just a little more power to overcome weight of the bike, a little help.
• Medium: Tired and need some help, but still want to push. (maybe power would be 100?, but support less?)
• High: 100/100. I need all the help I can get, I'm tired and riding a lot of hills.

Would I want the power at 100 for all 3? Since I could encounter a hill, rather than changing between the 3? Just changing different support levels?

20/100, 50/100, 100/100?

Jeff

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Would I want the power at 100 for all 3?

If I'm not wrong, the default settings are:

• ECO: 35/100%. Very flexible setting, giving the Vado SL a natural feeling, and rewarding you for your pedalling effort
• SPORT: 70/70%. Recommended when you need a fast ride.
• TURBO: 100/100%: Emergency setting. If you encounter a tough hill, just press the "S" button at the top of the remote ("Specialized Superpower") It gets you in Turbo with a single click.

100% as the Max Motor Power simply means the motor power is not limited up to 240 W. If you are a strong rider, you would be draining the battery fast. Examples of other settings:

• ECO: 45/45%. I use that in the summer for long lazy travels. Limiting the Max Motor Power is good for long battery range.
• SPORT: 60/60. Still economic, a faster ride.
• TURBO: 100/100%. Always recommended as it might pull you out of jam.

I use these settings (and Range Extenders) for group rides with younger and strong gravel cyclists: 70/70, 85/85, 100/100.

 

[Calcoaster]

I have been corresponding with Spec Rider Care about my power delivery on my Creo. It feels perfect and I like the amount of assist I get in the stock setting, but I noticed that I was getting a lot less motor power under the same conditions that I did on my Vado SL. The VSL did roughly follow the formula you have explained here many times: 35/35 gives rider power X .35 X 1.8 / .8 (the /.8 to convert from mechanical to electrical power, which is how MC reports it), up to about 107 watts, which is 35% of the max motor power.

My creo, however, seems to deliver power without the 1.8 multiplication factor. So with the same default 35/35 setting, 150 watts rider input on the vado sl just maxed out and gave me around 100 Watts (electrical). At 150 watts on the Creo, I get around 45 watts (electrical). Changing to 35/50 does give more like 55-60 watts at 150 rider input.

Now for something someone might be able to help with: I assumed the three assist levels worked the same way, using the same algorithm. But I took a ride in (eco, sport, turbo) set at 35/50, 35/50, 36/50 and used Blevo to track the data (Blevo requires that turbo assist be higher than sport, thus the 36% there).

I rode at several steady power levels between 100 and 250 or so rider watts. Eco and Sport were very close, sport seemed to give slightly more power but probably too close to call. Turbo, however, gave me twice the power and was hard to ride without maxing out with 175 watts of assist. At 36/50, the 175 watts isn’t too far off from 50% max, but at 36% assist, my 150 watts should be more like 120 watts according to the 1.8 x you formula. I never rode my Vado SL in turbo so I don’t know if it behaved differently than the other modes. Has anyone here noticed that Turbo mode follows a different set of rules than Eco and Sport?

I do like the creo and before I figured out I was doing the same rides that I had done on my VSL, at about the same speed, but with about 1/3 less motor power, I could tell I was riding more efficiently and feeling faster. I just want to be sure my motor isn’t compromised somehow.

Btw - if anyone is into seeing all their ebike data, from the basics, to motor current, voltage, temp … at 1 second intervals during a ride, just use Blevo and click “send CSV” at the bottom. I email it to myself to get all the details.

And after multiple email exchanges with Rider care where I shared data details, I realized the person I was talking to didn’t know or understand or care to understand much beyond “it’s you, only faster”

 

[rochrunner]

Btw - if anyone is into seeing all their ebike data, from the basics, to motor current, voltage, temp … at 1 second intervals during a ride, just use Blevo and click “send CSV” at the bottom. I email it to myself to get all the details.

And after multiple email exchanges with Rider care where I shared data details, I realized the person I was talking to didn’t know or understand or care to understand much beyond “it’s you, only faster”

(It's starting to get exhausting keeping up with this thread. ) A couple of minor points. BLEvo no longer works with the 2022 models due to Specialized encrypting the data (or something to that effect). And your interaction with Rider Care is pretty much par for the course when dealing with almost any customer service organization. I have no experience with Rider Care, but with other companies I have sometimes been able to break past the gatekeepers and finally talk to someone who actually knows something.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

@Calcoaster I cannot say. If I pedal hard in Vado SL Turbo, I max it out at 303 W electrical, 240 W mechanical.

 

[mschwett]

I have been corresponding with Spec Rider Care about my power delivery on my Creo. It feels perfect and I like the amount of assist I get in the stock setting, but I noticed that I was getting a lot less motor power under the same conditions that I did on my Vado SL. The VSL did roughly follow the formula you have explained here many times: 35/35 gives rider power X .35 X 1.8 / .8 (the /.8 to convert from mechanical to electrical power, which is how MC reports it), up to about 107 watts, which is 35% of the max motor power.

My creo, however, seems to deliver power without the 1.8 multiplication factor. So with the same default 35/35 setting, 150 watts rider input on the vado sl just maxed out and gave me around 100 Watts (electrical). At 150 watts on the Creo, I get around 45 watts (electrical). Changing to 35/50 does give more like 55-60 watts at 150 rider input

in that example, at least, the reason it’s not “1.8x” is because the MAXIMUM limit of 35 is 35% of 300w power draw, or approx 100 watts. if you put it on 35/100 you’d see 2x power draw relative to your leg wattage.

 

[Calcoaster]

in that example, at least, the reason it’s not “1.8x” is because the MAXIMUM limit of 35 is 35% of 300w power draw, or approx 100 watts. if you put it on 35/100 you’d see 2x power draw relative to your leg wattage.

I know that. At 35/35 I expect to see it peak out at just over 100 watts and that would happen with about 140 rider watts. I get about 40 watts. At 200 rider watts I get about 70 watts.

I understand the algorithm to be 1.8 X rider power, up to the max. Setting, which at 35rider, 35 max power will be 100 watts or so. (Adjusted for electrical power)

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Guys, did you consider so-called "manufacturer motor tuning"? The assistance is biggest at low speed. Because of the manufacturer tuning, your motor power output might be lower at high speed. We do not know the "power curve" of the motor.

 

[Calcoaster]

Guys, did you consider so-called "manufacturer motor tuning"? The assistance is biggest at low speed. Because of the manufacturer tuning, your motor power output might be lower at high speed.

Yeah, I wondered that too. And I wonder if the Creo is tuned differently than the Vado sl. I know the firmware version numbers are the same so I assumed they worked the same.
In turbo, even at 25/100, it wants to give me 300 watts with almost any pedal input. Since I rarely use turbo, that still works for me as a bail out setting but it makes me question whether things are working as designed.

 

[mogulman]

They called me and my bike is ready. Can't pick it up yet, damn work. and yeah...it's Colorado so it started to snow...

 

[mschwett]

I know that. At 35/35 I expect to see it peak out at just over 100 watts and that would happen with about 140 rider watts. I get about 40 watts. At 200 rider watts I get about 70 watts.

I understand the algorithm to be 1.8 X rider power, up to the max. Setting, which at 35rider, 35 max power will be 100 watts or so. (Adjusted for electrical power)

ah - i missed the 40 watts. my creo definitely doesn’t behave that way when it’s on, for example, 10/100. i get 2 x .1 x riderPower. you can see it quite clearly in the chart i posted above.

as i noted at 10/10 i get no assist at all, so there’s definitely something else going on with the “max” setting. at one point i was theorizing that it also takes into account the TOTAL power including rider, so if you’re putting out a good amount of power yourself, it’ll do very little.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

In turbo, even at 25/100, it wants to give me 300 watts with almost any pedal input.

There is nothing like Turbo. Eco, Sport and Turbo are just names of presets. You can set 25/100 in Turbo and it won't be Turbo anymore.
It is not possible that 25/100 in Eco or Turbo presets behaved differently!
One thought: Creo is expected to ride faster than Vado SL because of air drag. Perhaps you are getting less actual assistance because you're riding faster on the Creo?

 

[Calcoaster]

There is nothing like Turbo. Eco, Sport and Turbo are just names of presets. You can set 25/100 in Turbo and it won't be Turbo anymore.
It is not possible that 25/100 in Eco or Turbo presets behaved differently!
One thought: Creo is expected to ride faster than Vado SL because of air drag. Perhaps you are getting less actual assistance because you're riding faster on the Creo?

There is nothing like Turbo. Eco, Sport and Turbo are just names of presets. You can set 25/100 in Turbo and it won't be Turbo anymore.
It is not possible that 25/100 in Eco or Turbo presets behaved differently!
One thought: Creo is expected to ride faster than Vado SL because of air drag. Perhaps you are getting less actual assistance because you're riding faster on the Creo?

No, my observations are based on actual data from Blevo. On my Creo, turbo acts much differently that eco or sport. I can send you my Blevo csv file if you would like to see it. It shows that at the same rider input I get an extra 100 watts in turbo as compared to eco, even though both are set to the same assist and max. amounts.

 

[Saratoga Dave]

Jesus, and I thought I was being pretty racy and high tech when I used to clothespin playing cards to my spokes to make that loud motor sound. Somewhere along the line all this got a little bit complex.