His is also a Turbo Levo
I was lucky enough to be able to rent a gen 4 Levo for the day on a recent trip. I was very impressed. Great fun going down hill and I had to try pretty hard to rinse the battery by riding around everywhere in Turbo. I managed 75km, but that was with some non-pedalling uplift.
The impression I got from riding it was that I could probably have made 1800m of (steep) climbing in Turbo.
I’m on the verge of buying a Gen 4 Levo
The Levo forums are full of people moaning that the range of the Gen 4 is worse than the Gen 3 despite a bigger battery
But.... it weighs a bit more AND has more power, so the consensus seems to be that they are probably just rinsing them about at max power, or at least higher levels of power compared to the Gen 3's and probably just need to get their battery management sorted via the settings
I noticed the (micro tune?) function on the Specialized ebike app too late to try it on the Center Parcs hire emtb in March, but being able to adjust assistance in (10%?) steps is handy.
We're off to Longleat again in two months and I'm still trying to decide whether to hire the Specialized (white Turbo Tero 4.0?) or equivalent, which has a 710Wh battery and you can swap batteries at bike centre during their opening hours... Or take my GT Bolt, that will have more tarmac suitable tyres; ~8Kg lighter*; more aero position*; but much smaller 250Wh battery.
Train ticket with Bolt will save me ~£30 (hire premium emtb £75 for midweek stay collecting from 1100), if I can keep my sleep pattern under control I could arrive there earlier and make more of day1, but rest of family will still need two cars.
If I was fitter, the Turbo Tero should get me to Old Bristol Rd; Ebbor Gorge; Draycott Steep; Cheddar Gorge climbs, a recreation of the ride I did November '17 on my fat bike fitted with 29*2.35" G1Speeds.
* Weight and aero will only effect things when above motor assistance 15.5mph cutoff, which I did manage a few times on very shallow gradients.
On the Bosch Flow app if you put the gpx in, it will sort out the assist levels so you won't run out of battery.
That sounds like wonderful functionality!
Similar arrangement with the Specialized app and 'smart control'. Put in either distance/height gain or time/height gain and what percentage of battery you'd like to have at the end of the ride and it will meter out the assistance accordingly.
Similar arrangement with the Specialized app and 'smart control'. Put in either distance/height gain or time/height gain and what percentage of battery you'd like to have at the end of the ride and it will meter out the assistance accordingly.
Do you happen to know what the maximum distance/height gain the app will allow you to put in?
Similar arrangement with the Specialized app and 'smart control'. Put in either distance/height gain or time/height gain and what percentage of battery you'd like to have at the end of the ride and it will meter out the assistance accordingly.
Also with Spesh you can link your bike to your Garmin (don't think you can with Bosch) and it will tell you whether your battery will last your planned route - plus other metrics
Also with Spesh you can link your bike to your Garmin (don't think you can with Bosch) and it will tell you whether your battery will last your planned route
Is that a function on the bike, or on the Garmin?
Also with Spesh you can link your bike to your Garmin (don't think you can with Bosch) and it will tell you whether your battery will last your planned routeIs that a function on the bike, or on the Garmin?
Garmin, but obviously the bike is giving it it's data. It'll also give cadence/power input etc for Strava rides
I noticed the iGPSort 300T GPS computer claims to link up with ebikes and can be had for ~£130, but it's a bit lacking in details about what is will show and which brands/models.
Mahle do their own Pulsar One, but it costs ~£90 and is lacking on general functionality (eg. offline mapping) besides giving alternative +/- assist level buttons and battery health.
I tried the Mahle MySmartBike app on my mobile early on, but I wasn't terribly happy having my old mobile held by the spring loaded mobile holder outside, that I normally use on the turbo... Plus it went through mobile battery life at light speed (Mi A2 mobile from '19, but can still handle ~60min Zwift sessions on the mobile no problem).
@nbt - I’m on the verge of buying a Gen 4 Levo, and am musing on it’s viability for off road touring.
I think the only way to know for sure is to suck it and see.
It's worth noting that owners of Gen 4 Levo's have been reporting terrible range/efficiency compared to what you might expect from a modern system with a massive 840Wh battery... I have seen this first hand, me on my Gen5 Bosch bike with 800Wh battery finishing with 40%+ battery left when a Gen4 Levo rider has run out of battery!
Independent tests regularly show the Bosch CX motors to be about the most efficient of the bunch, though usually not much in it with most other brands, though the new Gen4 Levo does seem to suffer from being particularly thirsty from what I've seen so far...
It's worth noting that owners of Gen 4 Levo's have been reporting terrible range/efficiency compared to what you might expect from a modern system with a massive 840Wh battery... I have seen this first hand, me on my Gen5 Bosch bike with 800Wh battery finishing with 40%+ battery left when a Gen4 Levo rider has run out of battery!
Independent tests regularly show the Bosch CX motors to be about the most efficient of the bunch, though usually not much in it with most other brands, though the new Gen4 Levo does seem to suffer from being particularly thirsty from what I've seen so far...
It's not something I found a particular issue when I test rode one, but I am thinking of test riding a Trek Rail as well for comparison.
Similar arrangement with the Specialized app and 'smart control'. Put in either distance/height gain or time/height gain and what percentage of battery you'd like to have at the end of the ride and it will meter out the assistance accordingly.
Do you happen to know what the maximum distance/height gain the app will allow you to put in?
I've been and looked! Its 160km/5hrs with 3000m elevation.
Regarding devices, I've treated myself to a quadlock type case for my phone as the Spesh app/OSMaps/Komoot are better on the big screen than a small Garmin. It remains to be seen what the battery life is like on a ride.
Mine did woodingdean to eastbourne (600m ascent and about 40km) with a 375WH battery and 2 bars left the other day. DH tyres. trail mode on most hills. so eco i recon i could probably go there and back. (when its warm and dry - battery life isnt as good in teh cold!!)
e8000 and eco in the factory middle setting (whatevert that is) trail in low and boost in low. With my range extender i could easily do 100km and 1000ft.
One of the things I've realised/ found out the hard way is that it's easy to focus so much on battery conservation that you burn your legs out to early on.
I've found forcing myself to stick in eco or battling uphill with the motor off just means I'm more dependent on the battery later on in the ride.
I've finished countless 'big' rides absolutely exhausted with legs like jelly but still with ~25% battery remaining.
There's a definite learning curve to owning an ebike and I think it's important to experiment with settings and power modes etc to get the best from it.
Using my garmin to track rides, I can see assistance level and power mode over the duration of a ride. I can see that even climbing something sustained and ridiculously steep in boost , I'm only getting 80% of the assistance even though I know I'm giving everything I've got.
In that situation, it's good for battery conservation but bad for rider energy conservation. Similarly, if there was a section where I know I was just bimbling yet the bike is giving close to max assist, then I know I'm drawing more from the battery than I need to and could get away with turning down the assistance in whatever power mode i was in.
viability for off road touring.
Few years back I took a well loaded eBullitt cargo bike through the Bavarian Alps. Mix of asphalt and gravel roads.
I managed 320km >2000m of climbing and still had ~15% battery when I got home. Admittedly most of it was ridden (at a snail's pace) without any assistance, only using the motor when it got too much for my little legs.
This popped up on EMTB today, and I remembered someone here had asked about ranges over vertical climbing.
Hope it helps.
https://www.emtbforums.com/threads/bosch-range-tests-completed-by-loam-wolf.43244/
It didn't quite meet the OP's spec, but I managed a 50 mile ebike ride yesterday with ~3200 feet climbing, surprisingly only using 81% of the 248Wh battery on my Bolt.
3hrs12mins total time, ~15.7mph average
Vast majority of ride in eco mode (set at 75W)
Tiny bit of mid assist @ 140W, approx 2mins max of assist while activated for ~5mins
Turbo @ 250W, ~24mins of assist up four cat4 climbs and a few short steep ramps, while activated for ~34mins
Because of the rolling terrain in the Hampshire South Downs, I was above the motor cutoff assistance of 15.5mph for at least an hour (probably a bit more, no easy way of calculating this I can see on Strava), on descents and essentially flat road.
But the important factor was that pretty much every time I engaged turbo, I was often going threshold or beyond with my heartrate, rather than gently spinning an easy gear... That ~24mins of actual motor use would have used ~40% of the battery!
Tyres...... Ditch chunky rubber for some fast xc tyres and I'm sure some could do it.
So in summary it's a how long is a piece of string thing. We have
battery capacity
Rider weight
Rider fitnesss
Use of power levels
Bike weight/tyres/motor efficiency etc.
ambient temperature
terrain
I ride analogue but it's amusing watching stress levels rise in the club on long days out. 60kms in Ainsa or the Basque country has some riders with flat batteries whilst others are still at 60%
