I'm curious what tire pressure you are running on the front and back tire with the Turbo Vado? I have a 5.0 IGH. The manual says "check the tire pressure printed on the tires." I looked at the tires and it says 20-50. That's a really big range! On my mountain bike, I run 27 on the rear and 23 on the front. Road bike pressure is usually higher, so I'm thinking 35 on the front and 40 on the back. Curious what y'all are doing.
Turbo Vado 5.0: What tire pressure do you run?
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Ben J
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There are lots of tire pressure calculators. This one is from SRAM: https://axs.sram.com/guides/tire/pressure but you can google lots of others
The range on the sidewalls is extreme..
The range on the sidewalls is extreme..
Thanks! Any idea how much the Vado 5.0 IGH weighs? This is required for the pressure calculators, but I can't find any mention of weight on Specialized's site or in any reviews.
Specialized doesn't publish weights that I could find. LBS weighed a non-IGH Turbo Como at 57 lbs. this month. I'd guess the Vado w/ IGH might be close to 60 lbs.
Stefan Mikes
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Tire Pressure Calculator
Finally a tire pressure calculator based on real-road rolling resistance measurements. On real roads—rather than on a steel drum in the lab—supple high-performance tires work best at considerably lower pressures than most cyclists are used to. Lower pressures roll as fast or faster, while...
Stefan Mikes
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What is the weight specified here? I on my Vado with two panniers am close to 136 kg (300 lbs) total weight.This is from Specialized and may help, inflate to your weight.
The Rene Herse tire pressure calculator requires giving the total system weight and allows far lower inflation pressure than Specialized above. Moreover, Specialized 51-622 mm Electrak tires are designed to start at 2.0 bar, and the Rene Herse calculator recommends the "Soft" setting of only 2.7 bar when I'm riding with a single pannier; giving a soft, efficient ride.
JayUK
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Who is Rene Herse and why should I care what he says? Tyre pressure should be set to weight and conditions, the same as car tyres.
Stefan Mikes
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It is a bicycle company that knows the business. If you read the related article, you would understand the science behind it. Yes, this Calculator relates the pressure to the tyre width, total system weight and riding conditions (Soft/Firm).
You may ignore the Rene Herse Tire Pressure Calculator but then ignore the Park Tools bicycle technology videos
(Who is Mr Park Tools anyway? A Korean or what?)Camasonian
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I run my Turbo Vado 5.0 at about 50 psi. But I'm a pretty big guy and I'm also carrying bags with spare clothes tools, work backpack, etc. and ride over pretty varied urban pavement in my 13 mile commute, some great, some pretty broken up. They bleed air slowly so every couple weeks I top them back up to 50.
After getting more flats than I wanted last year (glass and thorns mostly) I installed Tannus Armor tire inserts which are basically pieces of foam similar to pipe insulation that you install into your tire which means you also drop down a size for your tube. They aren't cheap. I'll know in a few months whether they were worth it: https://tannusamerica.com/products/tannus-armour
After getting more flats than I wanted last year (glass and thorns mostly) I installed Tannus Armor tire inserts which are basically pieces of foam similar to pipe insulation that you install into your tire which means you also drop down a size for your tube. They aren't cheap. I'll know in a few months whether they were worth it: https://tannusamerica.com/products/tannus-armour
I ride ride with as low pressure as to not feel any crisp feeling or drag beginning from the tire pressure being too low. I can feel it on my bike as soon as it starts pedaling a bit harder. Obviously the heavier the load the more pressure required to keep the crisp feeling and rolling resistance down. Don't forget the rear tire carries a lot more weight than the front.The lower pressure gives a better ride too.
Deacon Blues
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I found this site to be one of the best for setting up a bike's proper tire pressure: https://silca.cc/pages/sppc-form?submissionGuid=4f054f73-4e2c-4376-bbd7-d2abb65e15db
I use it on my road, commuter, and mountain bikes.
I use it on my road, commuter, and mountain bikes.
Stefan Mikes
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It would be a good calculator if not limited to tubeless setups?
Jeremy McCreary
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Let's put rolling resistance (RR) in perspective. Per Wilson and Schmidt, 2020, Bicycling Science, 4th ed., the coefficient of rolling resistance (Cr) for a typical commuter tire on smooth, hard pavement is around 0.006. Which makes the corresponding RR equal to the slope resistance you'd encounter on a grade of 0.6%.
This is true at any total weight. And for many riders, a grade like that would be hard to detect — with or without assist.
So if you're not riding the Tour de France, and don't have to squeeze every last mile out of your battery, you can reasonably let the RR be the motor's problem.
Per Wilson and Scmidt's data, smooth hardpack has little effect on RR. (Loose, soft, and rough surfaces are of course a very different story.)
As Rene Herse's research shows, RR on pavement has a 2nd broad minimum at lower pressures. So an ebiker on smooth pavement or hardpack might reasonably pick tire pressure on desired ride feel alone, with rock bottom set by the pressure needed to maintain an acceptanble risk of pinch flats on the surfaces actually ridden.
Question is, how do you determine that rock bottom pressure?
This is true at any total weight. And for many riders, a grade like that would be hard to detect — with or without assist.
So if you're not riding the Tour de France, and don't have to squeeze every last mile out of your battery, you can reasonably let the RR be the motor's problem.
Per Wilson and Scmidt's data, smooth hardpack has little effect on RR. (Loose, soft, and rough surfaces are of course a very different story.)
As Rene Herse's research shows, RR on pavement has a 2nd broad minimum at lower pressures. So an ebiker on smooth pavement or hardpack might reasonably pick tire pressure on desired ride feel alone, with rock bottom set by the pressure needed to maintain an acceptanble risk of pinch flats on the surfaces actually ridden.
Question is, how do you determine that rock bottom pressure?
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Camasonian
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Rolling resistance is also less of a factor on ebikes than regular bikes due to the higher speeds.
As you go from say riding at 10-15 mph on a conventional bike to riding at 25 mph on an ebike the friction from wind resistance goes up geometically while rolling resistance does not. So basically the faster you ride, the less your total drag is due to rolling resistance and the more it is due to wind resistance.
I live in Tucson, AZ which has a very good population of bicycles, electric and non electric. Miles and miles of riding trails plus the famous Loop. The fast bikes are on the road and the electric bikes for the most part are on the bike paths. The ones that are on the road are going fast and the electrics are leisurely riding the paths enjoying the roses. It seems whatever I read indicates that it is the electric bikes that are going fast and furious and are the dangerous lot, not so here from what I observe. Of course we have a lot of senior citizens riding ebikes and we ride more slowly then the younger spandex crowd.
Ben J
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Most people I see who are riding ebikes that look like bikes are riding like normal people (or, as you say, slower than road cyclists).
But the ones that get the attention are riding "ebikes" like the Surron and are going way too fast for a mixed-use path. And these days, e-scooters and those e-uniwheel things.
Jeremy McCreary
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Absolutely, and you can see how the relative resistances play out with ground speed, headwind, and grade here.
Air resistance is the only common resistance* with any speed dependence to speak of. And slope and rolling resistances are the only ones with any weight dependence to speak of. Good to keep in mind when strategizing about things like battery range.
* In cycling, a resistance is any net force directly opposing forward progress. The resulting power loss is ground speed times the resistance.
Since resistances and power losses are additive, this is also true of the total power loss due to total resistance. On smooth, hard pavement, total resistance is to a very good approximation just the sum of air, slope, and rolling resistance due to tire flexure.
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