So I paid £60 to demo a 2019 Levo Carbon Comp recently and thought people might be interested in an Emtb newbie's thoughts.
I currently own a Carbon Strive and Carbon Sender both of which I really like except for the fact they don't have motors. I have been biking for 10 years, am 5'10", 100kg with gear and picked the Large Levo which fitted well with a similar reach and head angle to the Strive which it would replace. My fitness is somewhere between poor and awful. I really hate pedalling uphill so an Emtb has obvious appeal. To give an idea of my skill level I did the Strava section "Ho Chi Min EWS" which is pretty straight, fast and rough (0.61km , 71m, -12%) with zero pedalling for me. Some times for comparison - Greg Callaghan 58s, Cecile Ravanel 72s, Me 70s.
I've previously demo'ed a Pivot Shuttle with Shimano motor and a Mondo with a Bosch. I didn't like the Bosch as it's not very smooth and the whole 16t chainring with gearing thing seems inefficient and it was very draggy above 15mph. The Shimano motor was better but still somewhat 'steppy' in power delivery on mild climbs. It felt like the power changed from 40% to 60% with slightly varying gradients or torque inputs.
Specialized delivered the bike to Pedal Power in West Calder where I picked it up for a 48hr demo. After I got it home I found out the gears were not setup correctly so I fixed that and tweaked pressures and brake angle etc. I tested it on tarmac around my house and played with the mission control app. Turning down the trail mode from 30-100 to 25-100 made it a bit more natural feeling which was nice. In my opinion the Shuttle mode is not really a 'mode' and more of a tuning bias or sensitivity. At zero you need a bit a torque input to hit top spped in Turbo mode or to get above the base level in Trail mode. Dialing Shuttle up to 100 affects Trial and Turbo in the same way by reducing the required torque input from your legs to get the max power out of the motor. I think it's pretty similar to the Shimano sensitivity setting. I set it to 40%.
First day I tried a hillwalkers trail up Dumyat which is a mix of hardpack path, dirt, grass and rocks. There were several sections of rocks about 20ft high and 30% or more gradient that I had to push up. Pic from car park looking at Dumyat. The bikes upside down because I need to take the wheels off to get it in the car -
First disappointment was the walk mode which is terrible. If you are on a gradient that makes you get off and push, say 30% plus then it doesn't provide enough power to move itself forward. Pushing the button (which is awkward to reach and quite stiff) has a barely noticeable effect. I would guess it needs double the power to be useful. On the dirt and hardpack surfaces it was excellent. I am sure it didn't have the "noisy motor" issue some people are reporting. It was very quiet in Trail/Eco mode and from memory it was slightly quieter than the Shimano in Turbo mode which is fine.
After I got to a large ledge I gave up climbing to the top and headed down. I made it 200m before a pinch flat stopped play. The bike was using skinny lightweight inner tubes which were garbage. I changed it for my Maxxis 27.5 Freeride tube (never had a 29 bike before) and upped the pressures to 23 Front / 26 Rear which worked ok. The rest of the downhill was pretty great, you feel really "in" the bike and the geometry is excellent. I got used to the weight for the most part however it did make bunny hopping roots and rocks harder than usual.
Second day I went to Glentress and did a route that was a mix of Black, Fire Roads and off-piste trails including some 2014 EWS sections.
Another nice day in Scotland -
Again the geometry and handling of the bike is excellent. It was my first time on 29 wheels and I was worried they would be a bit unwieldy and cumbersome but they were fine and, of course, rolled very well. I mostly used Turbo mode on climbs with some Trail on flatter and downhill sections and no Eco at all. For uphill hairpins I felt the front end wanted to wash wide in Turbo mode so started dropping down to Trail for the corner then back into Turbo at the exit which was much better. I got back to the car with 3 bars still so I had a loop of Janet's Brae of 130m climbing which dropped it to one red bar. It seemed to go from 2 bars to one in about 200m. Total ride stats below -
I noticed Rob said about his range test "In total I covered approximately 3000 ft of elevation before the change to the second battery.". That equates to about 914m even though he was mostly in Eco mode. He looks thinner than me so I am reasonably impressed with the battery performance !
How a good day out ends -
Overall it's pretty great but I could use more battery endurance so I have ordered an Expert, due in Feb 2019.
I currently own a Carbon Strive and Carbon Sender both of which I really like except for the fact they don't have motors. I have been biking for 10 years, am 5'10", 100kg with gear and picked the Large Levo which fitted well with a similar reach and head angle to the Strive which it would replace. My fitness is somewhere between poor and awful. I really hate pedalling uphill so an Emtb has obvious appeal. To give an idea of my skill level I did the Strava section "Ho Chi Min EWS" which is pretty straight, fast and rough (0.61km , 71m, -12%) with zero pedalling for me. Some times for comparison - Greg Callaghan 58s, Cecile Ravanel 72s, Me 70s.
I've previously demo'ed a Pivot Shuttle with Shimano motor and a Mondo with a Bosch. I didn't like the Bosch as it's not very smooth and the whole 16t chainring with gearing thing seems inefficient and it was very draggy above 15mph. The Shimano motor was better but still somewhat 'steppy' in power delivery on mild climbs. It felt like the power changed from 40% to 60% with slightly varying gradients or torque inputs.
Specialized delivered the bike to Pedal Power in West Calder where I picked it up for a 48hr demo. After I got it home I found out the gears were not setup correctly so I fixed that and tweaked pressures and brake angle etc. I tested it on tarmac around my house and played with the mission control app. Turning down the trail mode from 30-100 to 25-100 made it a bit more natural feeling which was nice. In my opinion the Shuttle mode is not really a 'mode' and more of a tuning bias or sensitivity. At zero you need a bit a torque input to hit top spped in Turbo mode or to get above the base level in Trail mode. Dialing Shuttle up to 100 affects Trial and Turbo in the same way by reducing the required torque input from your legs to get the max power out of the motor. I think it's pretty similar to the Shimano sensitivity setting. I set it to 40%.
First day I tried a hillwalkers trail up Dumyat which is a mix of hardpack path, dirt, grass and rocks. There were several sections of rocks about 20ft high and 30% or more gradient that I had to push up. Pic from car park looking at Dumyat. The bikes upside down because I need to take the wheels off to get it in the car -
First disappointment was the walk mode which is terrible. If you are on a gradient that makes you get off and push, say 30% plus then it doesn't provide enough power to move itself forward. Pushing the button (which is awkward to reach and quite stiff) has a barely noticeable effect. I would guess it needs double the power to be useful. On the dirt and hardpack surfaces it was excellent. I am sure it didn't have the "noisy motor" issue some people are reporting. It was very quiet in Trail/Eco mode and from memory it was slightly quieter than the Shimano in Turbo mode which is fine.
After I got to a large ledge I gave up climbing to the top and headed down. I made it 200m before a pinch flat stopped play. The bike was using skinny lightweight inner tubes which were garbage. I changed it for my Maxxis 27.5 Freeride tube (never had a 29 bike before) and upped the pressures to 23 Front / 26 Rear which worked ok. The rest of the downhill was pretty great, you feel really "in" the bike and the geometry is excellent. I got used to the weight for the most part however it did make bunny hopping roots and rocks harder than usual.
Second day I went to Glentress and did a route that was a mix of Black, Fire Roads and off-piste trails including some 2014 EWS sections.
Another nice day in Scotland -
Again the geometry and handling of the bike is excellent. It was my first time on 29 wheels and I was worried they would be a bit unwieldy and cumbersome but they were fine and, of course, rolled very well. I mostly used Turbo mode on climbs with some Trail on flatter and downhill sections and no Eco at all. For uphill hairpins I felt the front end wanted to wash wide in Turbo mode so started dropping down to Trail for the corner then back into Turbo at the exit which was much better. I got back to the car with 3 bars still so I had a loop of Janet's Brae of 130m climbing which dropped it to one red bar. It seemed to go from 2 bars to one in about 200m. Total ride stats below -
I noticed Rob said about his range test "In total I covered approximately 3000 ft of elevation before the change to the second battery.". That equates to about 914m even though he was mostly in Eco mode. He looks thinner than me so I am reasonably impressed with the battery performance !
How a good day out ends -
Overall it's pretty great but I could use more battery endurance so I have ordered an Expert, due in Feb 2019.
