Specialized’s ultra-light 120-mile range e-bike - Turbo Vado SL

rochrunner said:
2) The solid fork would put me out of the market for it. I expect my Vado 4.0 to be an all-road bike with some trips on smooth-to-rough unpaved roads and other roads where I'd like the softer fork. I do take my solid-framed Felt on some of those same roads, but then again it's a carbon frame made to allow some flex in the right places.
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A correction on this: I see now that it comes with the Future Shock feature that they've been using on some of their road bikes. In most cases, this would smooth things out sufficiently on rough roads. It's not equivalent to the forks on a MTB, but neither is the regular Vado fork.
 
rochrunner said:
A correction on this: I see now that it comes with the Future Shock feature that they've been using on some of their road bikes. In most cases, this would smooth things out sufficiently on rough roads. It's not equivalent to the forks on a MTB, but neither is the regular Vado fork.
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Is future shock on all SL Vados or just the top end?
 
@Captain Slow , the trail is 12 foot wide and almost empty once get passed a few miles. It is mostly cement and pretty smooth, you could ride without light at night (if it wasn’t closed at dark) as long as could see the outline. I am not sure of your comfort level but 28 mph with 40 miles to get home just isn’t that fast worrying about squirrels crossing in front of you
 
Stefan Mikes said:
As I said before, the buyers for the SL can be easily found. I am overly critical, true. I still believe the full Vado (Class 3) is the king of the class. OK, Allant+ 9.9S is the strong competitor. I might even add that dual-battery Class 1 R&M bikes are long range runners, even though the Homage 2 x 500 W ridden by an experienced user reaches 150 but not 160 km (I have asked the rider).

Only don't tell me a pannier-loaded SL rider will make 100 miles on the small battery + the extender.
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Not sure about 100 miles, but I rode the same route this week (different days) on both a Creo SL Carbon Comp Evo and a Trek Allant 8S. Limitations in a direct compare since there are different assist levels, and other variables. The route: 15 miles up Big Cottonwood Canyon in Utah, 4500 ft elevation gain. I live at 9000ft altitude near the top of the canyon and did not use assist on trip down. My energy effort was about the same for each ride. For the Allant with the Bosch Gen 4 motor, I was in level 2 of 4 (Tour) throughout the ride except for about 3 miles of the route where I went to Level 3 of 4 (sport) for some of the steeper sections. I used 67% of the 625 Watt battery. For the Creo, I was in level 2 of 3 for the route except for level 3 for about 3 miles. I had the range extender battery and used 48% of the main 320 watt battery and 48% of the 160 watt range extender battery. I also completed the uphill ride 25 minutes faster with the Creo.

My impression is that a lighter bike with narrower tires despite the smaller battery could likely compete in range with the heavier bigger battery bikes. The range extender may be a great item to get and my dealer gave me a $200 discount of the RE battery ($250 vs $450) when I bought the bike. I really like the Creo think the Vado SL will be a terrific bike. With the 55lb Allant, it is hard to get up stairs (5 steps on my porch) and on a bike rack. Also the heavier bike is far less nimble.
 
Beamer said:
Not sure about 100 miles, but I rode the same route this week (different days) on both a Creo SL Carbon Comp Evo and a Trek Allant 8S. Limitations in a direct compare since there are different assist levels, and other variables. The route: 15 miles up Big Cottonwood Canyon in Utah, 4500 ft elevation gain. I live at 9000ft altitude near the top of the canyon and did not use assist on trip down. My energy effort was about the same for each ride. For the Allant with the Bosch Gen 4 motor, I was in level 2 of 4 (Tour) throughout the ride except for about 3 miles of the route where I went to Level 3 of 4 (sport) for some of the steeper sections. I used 67% of the 625 Watt battery. For the Creo, I was in level 2 of 3 for the route except for level 3 for about 3 miles. I had the range extender battery and used 48% of the main 320 watt battery and 48% of the 160 watt range extender battery. I also completed the uphill ride 25 minutes faster with the Creo.

My impression is that a lighter bike with narrower tires despite the smaller battery could likely compete in range with the heavier bigger battery bikes. The range extender may be a great item to get and my dealer gave me a $200 discount of the RE battery ($250 vs $450) when I bought the bike. I really like the Creo think the Vado SL will be a terrific bike. With the 55lb Allant, it is hard to get up stairs (5 steps on my porch) and on a bike rack. Also the heavier bike is far less nimble.
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Some additional information to put these two Canyon rides in perspective. I weigh 180 lbs and am 64 years old. I have ridden bikes a lot throughout my life, but mostly road/commuting and less mountain. I am not in the best of shape yet this year. I did not ride much last year while recovering from knee surgery and the ski season was cut short. I have been riding for about the past 2 months and am getting stronger. Once I get in better shape, I feel that I could easily do the entire ride in only level 2 of 4 on the Allant and level 2 of 3 of the Creo. Both bikes feel very sluggish in the lowest assist level when going uphill and will likely not use those levels while climbing since it take away the fun. It took me 1 hr 45 min to complete the ride on the Allant and 1 hr 20 minutes on the Creo. I was monitoring cadence on both rides and maintained a fairly consistent pace of about 80 rpm on both bikes.
 
Over50 said:
Trying to post a link to a Bloomberg article about e-bike sales and Specialized offerings:

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Great article, thanks for sharing. Very interesting reading about the drive system design and testing based on rider feedback from the Turbo S.

1589560325030.png
 
Geez, this thread is really bad for the whole N+1 jealousy. Deacon orders TWO watts wagons, and now I read that Beamer has both a Creo and an Allant 8S with the 625 wh battery. Plus this thread is making me want to get a Vado SL for my wife.

Bad thread for the wallet!
 
I agree, Captain Slow.
yesterday, I went to my local Specialized dealer's online site to see if they had any Vado SLs in stock (they didn't). While on the site looked at the Creo SL E5 again and the photo showed a Creo with a frame painted red.
The red painted bike looks awesome, but when I went to were it showed the stock available, in store or warehouse, only the Satin black and Satin cast blue showed up. The red option was there, but not highlighted like the satin colours where.

Lucky for me the red is not available. ;)
 
Yes, I have that rather ugly grey. The red looks much nicer. But if you go to the Specialized website, it appears the red is not available in Canada. But it is available to US purchasers.
 
JayVee said:
Maybe it’s not just this thread, but the whole forum.

It’s possible that like kids we all have a bad influence on each other.

“And remember, son, don’t you go hanging out with those EBR people.” :D
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I was the same way with cars, through my car-crazy years. Now it's ebikes.
 
Sierratim said:
Saw a new Vado SL on a trail near Sacramento, CA today. Very sleek and hard to tell it's an ebike as it goes by. The motor noise was louder than I expected...
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Light and inexpensive were the goals. Sacrifices may have been made toward that end.
 
Phyz said:
Light and inexpensive were the goals. Sacrifices may have been made toward that end.
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I suppose. Perhaps I'm just accustomed to the quite 'whirr' of my Vado 5 mid-drive.
 
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