Levo, when I stop pedaling, the motor doesn't for a bit

SmackIt

Member
Jul 21, 2019
33
36
Reno
My 2019 S-Works Levo is a couple weeks old and is doing it. At first, it only happened once or twice during a ride. Tonight it happened enough that I went looking for a thread about it on emtbforums. Same symptom, a solid 2-3 seconds of power after I stop pedaling in trail & turbo modes. In one situation, my feet were not on the pedals and the motor was pushing the bike forward with the pedals spinning. At first I thought it was a feature....now I'm leaning towards flaw.
 

Whizz

Member
Oct 23, 2018
13
9
Belgium
I had this problem on my levo 2019( it stopped 2 or 3s after I stopped to pedal instead Of 0,2s).

It was a defective motor freehub. (sometimes the chainring turned backward when I pedaled backward, as if freehub stick)

It need to change the motor.

Done on my bike and it work well again.
 
Last edited:

Bryan Wells

Active member
Jul 31, 2019
120
140
Washington
My 2019 S-Works Levo is a couple weeks old and is doing it. At first, it only happened once or twice during a ride. Tonight it happened enough that I went looking for a thread about it on emtbforums. Same symptom, a solid 2-3 seconds of power after I stop pedaling in trail & turbo modes. In one situation, my feet were not on the pedals and the motor was pushing the bike forward with the pedals spinning. At first I thought it was a feature....now I'm leaning towards flaw.
exactly
 

Tricati01

Member
Sep 30, 2019
8
12
Christchurch, NZ
My wife and I recently updated our 2018 Levo’s to 2020 Levo Experts (After the extended range) and my bike has developed the issue of the motor running on when pedaling stopped.
Having 2 bikes of the same year & model has allowed me to accurately compare the operation of the bikes.
The technical info from Specialized indicates the motor should cut out within 200 milli-seconds, which is almost instantly, and this is the case with my wife’s bike. Mine runs for about ½ a chainring revolution, and occasionally a little longer.
Additionally, when I turn the power off, my bike has significant drag when turning the cranks; whereas my wife’s bike is totally free and pedals like a slightly heavier un-assisted bike.
My bike has been back to the shop and checked, and they advised that they couldn’t identify any faults.
I have checked to ensure latest Firmware is installed, the drive train is clean and lubricated, tried the bike in all 3 modes and different gears on the cassette and that the freehub has no drag; so believe I have eliminated issues outside the motor – yet the issue remains.
It appears however either the cadence, and or torque, within the motor is being sensed is not operating correctly, so I am hoping Specialized come up with a fix quickly.
 

Bryan Wells

Active member
Jul 31, 2019
120
140
Washington
My wife and I recently updated our 2018 Levo’s to 2020 Levo Experts (After the extended range) and my bike has developed the issue of the motor running on when pedaling stopped.
Having 2 bikes of the same year & model has allowed me to accurately compare the operation of the bikes.
The technical info from Specialized indicates the motor should cut out within 200 milli-seconds, which is almost instantly, and this is the case with my wife’s bike. Mine runs for about ½ a chainring revolution, and occasionally a little longer.
Additionally, when I turn the power off, my bike has significant drag when turning the cranks; whereas my wife’s bike is totally free and pedals like a slightly heavier un-assisted bike.
My bike has been back to the shop and checked, and they advised that they couldn’t identify any faults.
I have checked to ensure latest Firmware is installed, the drive train is clean and lubricated, tried the bike in all 3 modes and different gears on the cassette and that the freehub has no drag; so believe I have eliminated issues outside the motor – yet the issue remains.
It appears however either the cadence, and or torque, within the motor is being sensed is not operating correctly, so I am hoping Specialized come up with a fix quickly.
100%, i have this issue, the motor is a drag now, and never used to be, but much more annoyingly the torque sensor is super poor, what happens is when you pedal hard then lightly back off but just barely and i mean barely keep the cranks rotating, the motor power remains at 100% and does not back off. We had a Spesh demo day in my town last weekends and none of the 2018 bikes had this issue (all the rep had was 2018 kenevos)
 

khorn

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It is obvious that those with a pedal on issue do have a defective motor and if your lbs or Specialized won’t accept it, you all have to put a bit more pressure on them.

Karsten
 

Zimmerframe

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Jun 12, 2019
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It is obvious that those with a pedal on issue do have a defective motor and if your lbs or Specialized won’t accept it, you all have to put a bit more pressure on them.

I had this problem on my levo 2019( it stopped 2 or 3s after I stopped to pedal instead Of 0,2s).

It was a defective motor freehub. (sometimes the chainring turned backward when I pedaled backward, as if freehub stick)

It need to change the motor.

You'd think within the Spesh Empire this would be logged as a known issue/fault and documented for tech's in shops to identify/prove and the steps to be taken to fix it ?? Or doesn't it work like that ? Have they not actually embraced support and fault logging for the "Turbo" range ? Is it all just down to the experience of an individual in a shop ?

"Hello, my bike seems to run on for 2 seconds .. Ah, that sounds like the 27b problem, let me run the tests for it to confirm .. yes yes, it's that, we need to swap your motor out - glad you came in before you had a panic moment and cycled off the edge of a cliff, they're so much harder to change when you have to scrape dried blood and bone fragments out of the bolt heads"

If this was a car and certain ones had a fault where it carried on accelerating for 2 or 3 seconds when you came off the gas there would be chaos and outrage !
 

khorn

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You'd think within the Spesh Empire this would be logged as a known issue/fault and documented for tech's in shops to identify/prove and the steps to be taken to fix it ?? Or doesn't it work like that ? Have they not actually embraced support and fault logging for the "Turbo" range ? Is it all just down to the experience of an individual in a shop ?

"Hello, my bike seems to run on for 2 seconds .. Ah, that sounds like the 27b problem, let me run the tests for it to confirm .. yes yes, it's that, we need to swap your motor out - glad you came in before you had a panic moment and cycled off the edge of a cliff, they're so much harder to change when you have to scrape dried blood and bone fragments out of the bolt heads"

If this was a car and certain ones had a fault where it carried on accelerating for 2 or 3 seconds when you came off the gas there would be chaos and outrage !


For me this is an extremely dangerous issue!!

Riding close to the edge of something very steep and you don't know exactly when your bike wants to stop moving forward after stop of pedalling I would consider a critical issue and Specialized should act accordingly. I assume that a company of this size have multiple issue tracker tools as well as an internal bulletin service to dealers and service centres around the world. However the system is not better than the willingness of the local LBS to keep themselves updated on service bulletins I guess.

There have been situations where Specialized did a recall due to a defective Öhlins fork(2018 Levo FSR) so they do have a system to cope with a situation like this - It would not look very nice for Specialized if they came in a situation where a Levo rider ends up in a fatal accident due to the above issue but again, if Specialized do not want to recognise it as an issue then it is hard.

I'm just saying that if my Levo did this and Specialized refused to fix it immediately I would immediately call out "NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE" and go via my local authorities in order to lift the deal and get a refund.

Maybe @Specialized Rider Care can shed some light on this issue?


Karsten
 

ccrdave

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have you tried lowering the acceleration value in MC or Blevo?
 

wepn

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have you tried lowering the acceleration value in MC or Blevo?
Not certain but hasn't that been removed in recent versions? I can adjust mine though I'm on TCU V1.7.0 & 10.23.1 firmware. In any case I ride with low PP in sketchy technical terrain and that helps too
 

ccrdave

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Not certain but hasn't that been removed in recent versions? I can adjust mine though I'm on TCU V1.7.0 & 10.23.1 firmware. In any case I ride with low PP in sketchy technical terrain and that helps too
not sure but its in my firmware on my 2019 levo and adjusting it down stopped my bike running on
 

Haedesz

Member
Sep 20, 2019
51
80
Belgium
There are so many parameters to be taken into consideration from an engineering stand of view.
Assuming your bike is in pristine condition and theres no problem with any of the mechanical or electronic hardware, theres still alot of difference in user input:

First of all, nobody pedals the same way. Even the same person will pedal differently from time to time. If you push through the pedal on your last stroke, the sensors dont deactivate immediatly. Mechanical torque and momentum dont dissapear immediatly, but dissapates over some time(ms).

Using the example of the car accelerating 2 seconds before stepping off the gas; you can still achieve this by flooring it and then completely stepping off the gas. The car will still accelerate for some time due to build up momentum. Is this a manufacturer fault?

A second thing to consider is acceleration, assistance and shuttle mode in mission control, which has been mentioned before. Changing these parameters will alter the algorythms used by the TCU to calculate what the motor should be doing when,where and why.
A practical test to see if this is an issue would look like this:
1. Set everything in turbo to 100% (acceleration, shuttle, peak, assistance) and go for a ride on flat tarmac. -> your bike will -probably- show the problem mentioned.
2. Do the same thing with all settings set on 10% and shuttle mode on 0% -> does the problem persist?
(Will do the test when I find the time.)

There's no error code or troubleshooting you could imagine which will eliminate these problems, except for calculating overshoots for the sensors. This will probably create more new issues than fix (from Spesh side of the spectrum).

Lastly I'm not dismissing the issue, I do believe there will always be bikes which have faulty systems and these should be fixed by your LBS. I would suggest never accepting "there is nothing wrong" when you're convinced of a problem.

Just be aware that input between man and machine will never be perfect.

Tldr; just my 2 cents trying to figure out the problem.
 

Mikerb

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It sounds like a pcb fault...I assume the power cut off is a transistor. Seems logical that higher amp draw would take longer to decay so maybe high acceleration settings coupled with higher assist levels are part of the cause?
 

khorn

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It is previously mentioned that the cut-off time from you stop peddling is 200 milliseconds and no settings should change that. Basically from the torque sensor registers no force applied it should take no longer than a 1/5 of a second. If the run on is longer than that something is clearly defective and should be handled accordingly.

On my 2018 Levo there is absolutely no run-on, it stops immediately.

Karsten
 

Mikerb

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It is previously mentioned that the cut-off time from you stop peddling is 200 milliseconds and no settings should change that. Basically from the torque sensor registers no force applied it should take no longer than a 1/5 of a second. If the run on is longer than that something is clearly defective and should be handled accordingly.

On my 2018 Levo there is absolutely no run-on, it stops immediately.

Karsten
Yes and I have no run on with my 2019 Levo ( acceleration and shuttle set to zero). If the condition affects some but not all surely there is a chance with so many variable settings that a certain combination causes a problem? If so a firmware fix could resolve it. It certainly needs to be reported to the lbs but a fix maybe available for those affected meanwhile by for example turning acceleration down to zero.
 

ccrdave

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as far as I can remember the 2017 bikes had the acc setting. spesh removed the acc setting for the 2018 bikes as they deemed it "unsuitable" but reinstated it to the 2019 bike as the new motor has better sensing capability.
I am not saying that you dont have a fault but if you ride a 2019 bike try the Acc setting and the Shuttle settings first
 

Mikerb

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It is previously mentioned that the cut-off time from you stop peddling is 200 milliseconds and no settings should change that. Basically from the torque sensor registers no force applied it should take no longer than a 1/5 of a second. If the run on is longer than that something is clearly defective and should be handled accordingly.

On my 2018 Levo there is absolutely no run-on, it stops immediately.

Karsten
I would hazard a guess that the time quoted is the time it takes the transistor to react to a voltage switch sent from a sensor. It most likely does not refer to the speed of decay of the motor which I reckon would depend on the amps it is drawing. These motors do not have a brake like for example a high end drill......that would make the bike un rideable.
 

Bryan Wells

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Jul 31, 2019
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All good ideas^ likely taking mine in if i cannot fix it working with Blevo using acceleration and shuttle settings. In a nutshell it really does feel like the bike has some really strong "shuttle mode" on that doesn't back off when rider input torque is heavily reduced.
 

khorn

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I would hazard a guess that the time quoted is the time it takes the transistor to react to a voltage switch sent from a sensor. It most likely does not refer to the speed of decay of the motor which I reckon would depend on the amps it is drawing. These motors do not have a brake like for example a high end drill......that would make the bike un rideable.
Good points but again, on my 1.3 motor I can push as hard as I can in turbo and as soon as I stop peddling the motor stops giving support instantly. My point is that no matter settings, there should not be any run-on at all.

Karsten
 

SmackIt

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Jul 21, 2019
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36
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Here's my story.

The 1st week of ownership was bliss. Moving from a 2016 to the 2019 was such a major upgrade.

The 2nd week was a little concerning. The power continuation was getting more noticeable. I came to the forum and commented.

The 3rd week was when the problem was serious enough to cause an accident and I returned the bike. I was given a new motor, although I would have preferred a new bike as I don't like $12k toys that have been crashed.

The new motor seems OK, I've only got 1 ride on it.

Click this for a video you can watch.

Make sure you go all the way to 35 seconds in the video, that's when it gets fun.
 

khorn

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Here's my story.

The 1st week of ownership was bliss. Moving from a 2016 to the 2019 was such a major upgrade.

The 2nd week was a little concerning. The power continuation was getting more noticeable. I came to the forum and commented.

The 3rd week was when the problem was serious enough to cause an accident and I returned the bike. I was given a new motor, although I would have preferred a new bike as I don't like $12k toys that have been crashed.

The new motor seems OK, I've only got 1 ride on it.

Click this for a video you can watch.

Make sure you go all the way to 35 seconds in the video, that's when it gets fun.
WOW!!!

Settings or not, this is solid proof that at least one bike have an issue. If the other bikes have similar problems I think Specialized have a new issue in general.

Karsten
 

Mikerb

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Yep looking at that I wonder if the cadence sensor is sticking on.....ie telling the motor the rider is still pedalling? That looks like an extreme example and others may have something a bit less provided they do not implement settings that give cadence more precedence in the software...like acceleration and shuttle.
 

galaga187

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Apr 15, 2018
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Wroughton
Here's my story.

The 1st week of ownership was bliss. Moving from a 2016 to the 2019 was such a major upgrade.

The 2nd week was a little concerning. The power continuation was getting more noticeable. I came to the forum and commented.

The 3rd week was when the problem was serious enough to cause an accident and I returned the bike. I was given a new motor, although I would have preferred a new bike as I don't like $12k toys that have been crashed.

The new motor seems OK, I've only got 1 ride on it.

Click this for a video you can watch.

Make sure you go all the way to 35 seconds in the video, that's when it gets fun.
Same here - I’m taking the bike into LBS on Monday.
 

Zimmerframe

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Omg is that the new 2021 enduro I was taking about earlier?? Telepathy on sworks only.
I knew it!

And you wanted "Auto Stoppie", looks like the back wheel is off the floor so they must have incorporated that too !!

My Decathlon did what that s-works did. Never realised what high end features it had included at €1200 .. The Decathlon didn't have a torque sensor (though they say it does), just a crank movement sensor and only in one place. That s-works does look like the torque sensor is spinning loose on the crank - or the torque sensor indicator cog or whatever it is .. would have to watch a @Bearing Man video to check ..
 

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