Unsolicited Specialized motor turn ons

[RoyHudd]

Not so much problems as "features" of my 2021 2nd Generation Specialized Turbo Levo Expert.
1. To get the bike in the back of my station wagon I have to remove the front wheel and I do this by turning the bike upside-down. After replacing the wheel at journey's end using the same upside-down technique I turn the bike apex over base by grabbing the handlebars and standing up so flipping the bike over longitudinally (and dodging the rear wheel which comes back towards me with seemingly evil intentions aimed at my shin). I am not too concerned about the comparatively gentle splashdown for the front wheel as the bike takes much bigger impacts out on the trail. Sometimes re-righting the bike in this fashion results in the motor turning on without me hitting the go button.

2. My mechanic showed me a trick to cleaning and oiling the chain while having the bike in the upright position. He puts an allen key in one of the front chain ring spider screws thereby enabling the pedals to be cranked backwards. Of course this method encounters some motor resistance and sometimes when I do this the motor turns on unsolicited.

Wondering if anyone else has noticed these bike peccadilloes?

 

[Paulquattro]

Hi welcome

 

[Mikerb]

If you want a somewhat less traumatic method of removing and refitting the front wheel, try using a wheel stand. Firstly it means you can use it to stand the bike whilst you get your vehicle prepared. Remove the thru axle.......bike still stands. Pick the bike up using fork upper and seat stay on the drive side and transfer to the vehicle.........Front wheel remains in the stand. Reverse procedure when removing the bike from the vehicle. Best to push a brake block into the front calliper to avoid any accidental operation of the front brake.

No flipping involved!!

Re your chain lube process..........firstly there is no reason why you have to lube the chain by cranking backwards provided you have the back wheel off the ground in a bike stand etc. Second, the battery should be disconnected when doing maintenance on the bike.

 

[RoyHudd]

Thanks Mikerb. Good food for thought.
Bike stand for lubing and maintenance would be great. No room in the garage for one: there are two of us and I think if shove comes to push my paraphernalia takes up considerably more than fifty per cent of the available room. Hence when I have to suspend a bike with the wheel off the ground I use a star-dropper placed horizontally between a ladder and a shelf when the car is out of the garage.
Wheel stand for wheel off/on = a little extra hassle but not much and hence worth a try thankyou. Just a note on the front wheel mechanism. Specialized have retroverted to a 19th century axle anchor method of a clamping bolt after screwing the axle into its thread-housing. My mechanic tells me that the reason for going to the bigger diameter axle and the clamping bolt is to stop the wheel flexing so much that the brake disc rubs on the brake pads ie to eliminate that slightly annoying riding squeak found with the Quick Release wheel-mounting mechanism. As we all know, that flex-and-rub is not eliminated - yes it is reduced in comparison to a QR-equipped bike - but it is definitely not eliminated. My guess is that the strength of the brake pad return spring worked well in the nice clean lab in the way-back-when first days of discs and like so many things in the history of cycling, what is established first (mechanicals, mantras, truisms) does not get changed in anything like a hurry.
Disconnecting the battery when working on the bike is a good hint thankyou. In a Specialized that means opening the side-flap to disconnect the battery and doing so prevents the cranks turning. Heh, heh ironically battery removal means either bike-flipping or using a bike stand.

 

[Mikerb]

Thanks Mikerb. Good food for thought.
Bike stand for lubing and maintenance would be great. No room in the garage for one: there are two of us and I think if shove comes to push my paraphernalia takes up considerably more than fifty per cent of the available room. Hence when I have to suspend a bike with the wheel off the ground I use a star-dropper placed horizontally between a ladder and a shelf when the car is out of the garage.
Wheel stand for wheel off/on = a little extra hassle but not much and hence worth a try thankyou. Just a note on the front wheel mechanism. Specialized have retroverted to a 19th century axle anchor method of a clamping bolt after screwing the axle into its thread-housing. My mechanic tells me that the reason for going to the bigger diameter axle and the clamping bolt is to stop the wheel flexing so much that the brake disc rubs on the brake pads ie to eliminate that slightly annoying riding squeak found with the Quick Release wheel-mounting mechanism. As we all know, that flex-and-rub is not eliminated - yes it is reduced in comparison to a QR-equipped bike - but it is definitely not eliminated. My guess is that the strength of the brake pad return spring worked well in the nice clean lab in the way-back-when first days of discs and like so many things in the history of cycling, what is established first (mechanicals, mantras, truisms) does not get changed in anything like a hurry.
Disconnecting the battery when working on the bike is a good hint thankyou. In a Specialized that means opening the side-flap to disconnect the battery and doing so prevents the cranks turning. Heh, heh ironically battery removal means either bike-flipping or using a bike stand.

I assume you are talking about the difference between a QR and a 15mm thru bolt. Note however there are a number of 15mm thru bolt designs that include a lever and do not require an Allen key to remove them.
Lack of room in a garage to use a bike stand can also be resolved with a wall mounted clamp that folds out of the way when not needed.
Re the inability to easily disconnect the battery due to the charging port "door " design, if you have the rear wheel off the floor rotating the cranks slowly forward will not cause the motor to kick in.

 

[Bearing Man]

Not so much problems as "features" of my 2021 2nd Generation Specialized Turbo Levo Expert.
1. To get the bike in the back of my station wagon I have to remove the front wheel and I do this by turning the bike upside-down. After replacing the wheel at journey's end using the same upside-down technique I turn the bike apex over base by grabbing the handlebars and standing up so flipping the bike over longitudinally (and dodging the rear wheel which comes back towards me with seemingly evil intentions aimed at my shin). I am not too concerned about the comparatively gentle splashdown for the front wheel as the bike takes much bigger impacts out on the trail. Sometimes re-righting the bike in this fashion results in the motor turning on without me hitting the go button.

2. My mechanic showed me a trick to cleaning and oiling the chain while having the bike in the upright position. He puts an allen key in one of the front chain ring spider screws thereby enabling the pedals to be cranked backwards. Of course this method encounters some motor resistance and sometimes when I do this the motor turns on unsolicited.

Wondering if anyone else has noticed these bike peccadilloes?

Is the motor switched on when it decides to start working?
Has the bike just been washed or in wet conditions before this happens? (including on a car rack on wet roads)

 

[RoyHudd]

Thanks Mikerb. Yes QR vs 15mm bolt. Will check out other designs. Another of the 15mm designs that we have on one of our bikes is a LOC which has a kind of expanding flange arrangement which compresses when the locking lever is released to enable the bolt to be withdrawn from the axle hole. This works well when everything is clean but...
Wall-mounted bike stand. Good idea thanks. Will look at re-design of the garage layout; probably need a cleanout of 'junk' to enable this to happen though .
Rear wheel off the floor; back to the original constraints.

 

[RoyHudd]

Thanks Bearing Man

Q1: No. Motor is initially dormant (ie no sign of a motor-turned-on indicator light) in both the flipping and the reverse-rotating scenarios.

Q2: No. Both instances happen when the bike is as dry as a dead dingo's donger. Both using in damp or wet conditions and washing a Specialized bike have their own issues so I am not at all surprised you suspect this could be a cause.

 

[Bearing Man]

Thanks Bearing Man

Q1: No. Motor is initially dormant (ie no sign of a motor-turned-on indicator light) in both the flipping and the reverse-rotating scenarios.

Q2: No. Both instances happen when the bike is as dry as a dead dingo's donger. Both using in damp or wet conditions and washing a Specialized bike have their own issues so I am not at all surprised you suspect this could be a cause.

If it's "as dry as a dead dingo's donger" then I would change the power lead from the battery to the motor. This has two cutback wires from the CAN bus line, if these are very close you maybe getting a spurious signal across them. This usually happens when water has got in the cable at some time in the pass but may happen dry if the wires are close or damaged.

If the bike has been ridden through floods or very wet at some time in the past, it maybe corrosion in the power plug or on the motors printed circuit.

All this still sounds virtually impossible though. It would make more sense if the bike was accidentally still switched on and the walk assist button pressed while pushing the bike backwards, or the walk assist button was depressed when the bike was upside down and resting on the handlebar control?

 

[DS.]

My 19 Levos have been doing this for years when oiling chain with bike upside down and then flipping it back over and the front wheel hits the ground it turns the bike on even my brand new 22 dose it though it was strange to start with, but doesn’t really bother me now and also I never wash them just spray with bottle and wipe them down a with cloth they also sometimes turn on when wheeling them out from my shed on the back wheel, and then letting the front will drop to the ground

 

[RoyHudd]

Thanks Bearing Man. There is a high possibility that water has got in there somewhere as the bike is as leaky as a government memo even though during my ownership of the bike (there is no telling what happened to it while it was ready for sale in the shop) it has only been ridden very carefully through creeks/watercourses of max about 120mm deep and less than 2 metres wide as I splash and carry through anything that looks a little deeper and there is nothing wider on our regular trails. In fact the amount of water in the watercourses of the Melrose and Willowie Forest trails of South Australia back in September is extremely rare (ie first time in twenty years) and hence was a good opportunity to test out the H2O capabilities.
Upside down the bike does not rest on the handlebar controls as I have plonked big bar-ends on the handlebars. I love the bar-ends. Sure they may be old-fashioned and make the bike look a bit like a Highland Cow - a mate of mine gave my old, old, old mtb the nickname Tex as he reckoned it looked like a Texas Longhorn - but you can flip the bike over and not have to worry about taking off computers, phones and lights and on the longer outings they give the wrists and hands a bit of a rest.
Thanks D.S. Your comment is mighty encouraging to conclusionise that the bike's behaviour is a Specialized 'feature'. I have not noticed the turn on after a back wheel wheeling but will keep an eye out. Thanks for the heads-up.