The Turbo levo experience
I have been talking about getting myself an E-bike for some time now as juggling weekend work and family life there is little time left to keep my bike fitness up. Plus when I am out photographing events, a powered bike would be awesome to get around on while carrying all my heavy camera gear!
With the quest to find a good value e-bike, A last minute decision on a Saturday morning led me to Just Ride at Nerang on the Gold Coast to hire a Specialized Levo.
The Levo was never really on my radar as they were out of my budget never really was a fan of the look of their E-Bikes. The big bulge where the motor sits always looked weird to me. The first bike I borrowed, which was a S4 (large) 2022 Comp Alloy version decided to give up about 40 minutes into the ride. A screeching motor, sounding like something was slipping and then the bike shutting down and flashing red and blue lights on the control panel.
A short cruise back to the shop and the good people at Just Ride fixed me up with a large 2023 Comp Carbon version.
Happy to say, there were 0 issues with this one and I was surprised how quickly I was able to get comfortable on the thing. Having no previous experience with e bikes, I was kinda expecting it to be really heavy and hard to manoeuvre. The first 20 minutes I was overshooting corners but after getting the hang of that and braking earlier, it felt not to much different to my current Giant Reign.
Battery life was also something I was really happy with. The Levo comes with a 700 watt hour battery and to put that into perspective I did 2 rides, one was 22km with 565m elevation and the other was 24km with 510m elevation. At the the end of each of these rides I still had around 47% battery left and I was riding the bike in turbo mode the whole time. Quite impressive!
Component wise, the bike was equipped with a Sram GX shifter and derailleur which shifted precise and crisp, Code RS brakes and specialized branded Butcher and Eliminator tyres in 2.6 inch size. The bike was also setup as a mullet which was a first for me as I usually just run a 29er all round setup. The only disappointing thing I thought was the suspension and not because it performed badly, in fact it performed pretty damn good!
It was a bit disappointing as the Fox 36 fork was only the Rhythm version and the Float X shock in the rear. For the retail price of $12,600 I would have expected factory forks and shocks.
One thing that I had heard people say about E-bikes was that they feel super planted and stable. I can definitely attest to this! The bike was a rocket, it railed corners and ate up all the the rocks despite it being a trail bike setup. Not once did I feel that the suspension was out of its depth.
I have a few other bikes I would like to test out such as a Focus Jam and Giant Reign E+ so it will be interesting to feel the difference. Unfortunately the Levo is well out of my price range so I can cross it off the list of potential bikes.
All I can say is that the first time riding an E-bike was probably the most fun I have had on a bike in a long time!
