Back to riding after 15 years away, 2020 Levo first week thoughts

[speedkills]

Hello from Colorado. I just picked up a 2020 Levo Comp, thought I would share my initial impressions of it along with some questions I had.

Overall, love it. My last bike, 15 years ago was a Specialized Enduro SX Trail and while I've had many brands and models of bikes, Specialized bikes have always fit me better than most. The power is exactly what I was looking for, enough to be able to have a fun ride but adjust it to keep my heart rate and effort in a range I can handle. The bike "feels" like it should be lively, but I notice while I have the bounce/preload I expect going into the face of a jump, I get less air than I expect. Maybe I have too much rebound damping? Or maybe my air sense is just out of tune after so many years off of a bike.

I'm 6'1", 275lbs. Not loving the weight but after years of barely being able to walk around due to a series of failed knee surgeries I just kept getting bigger and bigger, hopefully being able to get some activity back will help but for now I just have to set the bike up to handle it.

Random thoughts on ways I can improve the bike below. None of this is to say I don't absolutely love it, but I'm an engineer and we like to identify areas for improvement

Brakes have nice modulation, the jury is still out on power, I may upgrade these.

I had to take the road home tonight as I ran out of light, ordering up a Lupine light shortly. Got distracted by the question on their order form of 31.8 vs 35mm bar size. Are there compelling reasons to prefer one over the other? I do have some RSI issues in my hands, so a good vibration damping bar is something I will be looking for soon, don't much care if it's 31.8 vs 35mm, whichever works better, stems are cheap enough.

Pedal strikes! So many, this bike rides lower than past bikes of mine even with the sag set to 30% and I'm actually not using all of the travel in the back but that's ok as I haven't hit anything big yet. I wonder if my flip chip came in the high or low position? Shorter cranks may be required, anyone have opinions on 155mm vs 160mm cranks?

Also, with the low BB height I noticed I hit logs and rocks pretty easily. Need to pickup a bash guard pronto. Do people still use chainring guards, or is it all frame guards these days?

Dropper post is great. I got weird looks for having one 15 years ago, now everyone has them and I couldn't be more pleased with the trend. Will probably swap out to a 170mm AXS because I like to fine tune the height while riding and read that just tapping the electric control on the axs turns out to be about 5mm per tap height drop. Plus that should free up a route from the motor/seatpost area to the front of the bike to keep the headlight mounting clean. Or at least that's my hope.

Not a fan of the shifting at all, quite clunky and with the motor pushing for short bit after I quit pushing, I really have to wait a long time for a smooth shift. Plus, those breaks in power are hard to afford on the technical trails in my area, I think I'll just go to XTR to get some better shifting under load. Does anyone happen to know what parts I need to convert to XTR?

I'm undecided on the rear suspension so far, but the front is obviously way too progressive, I'm leaving over an inch of travel on the table, and I got two volume spacers in my bag with the charger from the dealer, so I'm thinking that means there are no spacers (tokens?) in the fork. Not sure what my options are there.

Single front chainring. I love this trend. I used to run them on my downhill bikes, but then couldn't climb, now I feel like I can have it all.

That's all I have for thoughts, to sum up, a few things I want to change, largely due to my riding style and weight, but overall the most fun I've ever had on a bike!

 

[speedkills]

Just remembered a few things that stood out about the electronics.

First, does everyone else find it hard to reach the walk assist button with where the dropper lever is placed? Do I need to hold the walk button the whole time I use it? I find that a bit tricky when I am pushing, maybe because I push front the left side? haven't actually tried it from the right side.

Second, I haven't been able to find a way to set acceleration or shuttle by mode. I'd like a lot of shuttle in turbo, but none in eco for example. Not sure if I'm being dense, or the Specialized programmers are. Can this be configured to be operated by the buttons, or do I need to pull my phone out every time I want to change between having some shuttle mode or not?

 

[speedkills]

One more small observation, given my weight and fondness for smashing into rocks, I had the dealer install cushcores. They said when they set the bike up they put stans in to help seal it, and I bought an extra bottle since it's a maintenance item, but by the time I got home the tire was flat. I checked and found one of the spokes is leaking air slowly. My first thought was I'll put a little more stans in there and try to turn the tire to an angle to make it seal up but I realized with those cushcores, I can't easily get the tire off. Probably need to watch some youtube vids of the technique. How are spokes sealed these days? Do I pull the cushcore out and re-tape the rim? I thought about having the dealer do it but that's an hour drive plus however long I have to wait so better just to do it myself.

 

[speedkills]

I just learned about shimano SLX group, looks better than XTR for my needs, less money, more steel.

 

[inwoods]

One more small observation, given my weight and fondness for smashing into rocks, I had the dealer install cushcores. They said when they set the bike up they put stans in to help seal it, and I bought an extra bottle since it's a maintenance item, but by the time I got home the tire was flat. I checked and found one of the spokes is leaking air slowly. My first thought was I'll put a little more stans in there and try to turn the tire to an angle to make it seal up but I realized with those cushcores, I can't easily get the tire off. Probably need to watch some youtube vids of the technique. How are spokes sealed these days? Do I pull the cushcore out and re-tape the rim? I thought about having the dealer do it but that's an hour drive plus however long I have to wait so better just to do it myself.

Pump it back up and go for a quick ride it will probably seal itself, I've had the odd spoke leak for a few days until its fully sealed itself.

You should have got a valve core remover with the cushcore, if not there cheap, you can use a tube to squirt some stans in through the valve once the cores removed, no need to pull the tyre off.

 

[robwormald]

Just remembered a few things that stood out about the electronics.

First, does everyone else find it hard to reach the walk assist button with where the dropper lever is placed? Do I need to hold the walk button the whole time I use it? I find that a bit tricky when I am pushing, maybe because I push front the left side? haven't actually tried it from the right side.

Second, I haven't been able to find a way to set acceleration or shuttle by mode. I'd like a lot of shuttle in turbo, but none in eco for example. Not sure if I'm being dense, or the Specialized programmers are. Can this be configured to be operated by the buttons, or do I need to pull my phone out every time I want to change between having some shuttle mode or not?

Acceleration and Shuttle Mode are set "globally" across the modes (this is noted in the app and in the manual, iirc). You can't change them on the fly from the handlebar controls.

Spent about 2 hours pedaling up and down my driveway the other day, playing with the app and getting a feel for how it felt tuning the various settings. I reckon I wouldn't change the acceleration value much, but it would be nice to "toggle" Shuttle Mode on and off.

At the Specialized experience center in Santa Cruz a couple of days ago (awesome place, rented my partner a Levo to try before we bought her one) I had a long chat with the folks there, and suggested that the Turbo Button, as set up today, is sort of redundant.

It doesn't do anything specialized ?, in the sense that you can accomplish exactly the same thing by tapping the + button at most two times (from eco->turbo). In most scenarios (riding in trail mode and wanting a bit more boost) it's one tap of the button. Arguably it's more confusing than not having it at all..

I put in a feature request to make the Turbo button ️configurable via the app - so that a rider could choose to make it toggle Shuttle Mode between two predefined values, or have it go to full-crazy acceleration mode, or change profiles... they said they'd pass it on ?‍

 

[aarfeldt]

Not a fan of the shifting at all, quite clunky and with the motor pushing for short bit after I quit pushing, I really have to wait a long time for a smooth shift.

Try to adjust the acceleration in the app.
Turn it off, and the bike will not push after you stop pedaling, and your shifts will be better.
This puzzled me too, after the first run

Pedal strikes....you can lift the bike (air pressure in suspension, flipchip, shorter crankarms etc) but it's primary your weight and technique.
This will improve...

Great bike.

 

[Frank_Denmark]

Get the short cranks from Miranda
I use the 152 mm - no more pedal strokes - You will get used to the shorter cranks within 1 hour

 

[speedkills]

Pump it back up and go for a quick ride it will probably seal itself, I've had the odd spoke leak for a few days until its fully sealed itself.

You should have got a valve core remover with the cushcore, if not there cheap, you can use a tube to squirt some stans in through the valve once the cores removed, no need to pull the tyre off.

I pump it up before every ride, no luck, but I'll look into the valve core remover. They didn't give me one but I also didn't realize you could remove the valve core in presta valves, that seems like the way to go. Thanks for the tip.

 

[RCDallas]

I found that my air leak, which sometimes showed as leaking thru a spoke hole, was a problem with the valve stem not sealing well. I ended up having to pull the tire and re-seat the stem with a little sealant around the base when installing. I have also fixed a slow leak on a front tire that would go down every 2-3 days by just tightening the valve stem a little. I'd try tightening the stem before removing the tire since that will be a job with the cushcore. You might even be able to loosen the stem a bit and get some sealant around the base by adding it thru the stem while at the 12 o'clock position on the wheel, then just re-tighten...worth a try!

 

[speedkills]

I ended up ordering a $5 presta valve core remover based on advice above. It's definitely not the stem, I can see little bubbles coming out around one specific spoke when I spray it with soapy water. Although, maybe @inwoods was correct about it sealing itself eventually. Every day it leaks a little more slowly which is kind of fun to see it slowly "healing" itself.

 

[speedkills]

It sealed up on my ride yesterday, would have been easy enough to fix anyway but it was more fun to see it seal it self up after enough bouncing around. Also, I found I was looking at the flip chip setting wrong and it was in low mode, put it in high today and it's much better about pedal strikes.