Appreciate your review. I demo'd the Evo just yesterday and rode my normal after work, hilly, mixed-terrain ride along with a few extra side trips to a few steep climbs. I am a Clydesdale and had used about 80% battery in 40 miles and 2000 feet of climbing. Obviously, the weight of the rider and the type of terrain have a lot to do with the range. I used Eco on the flat sections and then Sport and Turbo when it went uphill. I live right along the edge of the foothills in Colorado, so everything westerly is uphill and most of the other directions are rolling until I head home. I really had a good time riding the bike and even at my size, you could feel the motor kicking in once you got back on the pedals. The noise of the motor wasn't annoying, but pronounced enough that you knew when it was assisting you. Also, if you were riding next to another rider, they'd likely hear it as well if they were close. At first glance, they'd likely think it was just another Roubaix or Diverge. I have a Diverge, which they make in numerical sizes and ended up with the Large Creo which was close to the 58 Diverge. The position was a little more aggressive than the Diverge but on the Diverge I had tweaked the cockpit a bit. The marketing slogan is, "It's you, only faster!" My take on riding this type of bike is that I'm working just as hard, I'm just going to be out for more miles. With that said, I'd like to see a little more battery capacity in the internal battery as it would give me more range. I recognize the forthcoming add-on range extender battery would get you closer to 500 watt-hour but take away a bottle. So, given the progression in lithium battery tech, it would be nice if the internal battery were 500 Wh vs the 320 (maybe next year). It would also be nice if one could switch the modes without taking hands off the bar. So, yes, I'd really like to have one--probably the non-Evo model--but the cost right now is a big concern.
Steven Pedder: The motor sound can be greatly diminished during the times that it's heard (usually going uphill at 80-100 RPM in Turbo or Sport mode) by switching to a higher gear and, thus, reducing your cadence to around 60 RPM or slightly lower. This will reduce the sound significantly (not that it's loud) but will also result in a reduction of motor produced wattage efficiency, speeding up the battery use.
I am an older rider with a heart condition. If I want to ride with my younger friends I ride my Creo. I get the exercise I need and my friends don't drop me. If there is a serious headwind I can lead the group. Mostly I use the turbo mode for serious hills. I bought the road version but after trail riding with my wife who doesn't like riding on roads I concluded I needed the gravel tires. With the gravel tires I can jump between trails and road without any drop off in performance.
Great review! I'll be using this to trying and convince my 67 year old mum to replace her road bike and MTB. She only uses the MTB on gravel tracks so this would be perfect. My dad has a Levo but she finds eMTBs a bit heavy for her to handle.
Motor is a in house design, not from Specialized, but the german car supplier Mahle. Specialized added their software, and they payed for it of course, which is fine. The rest is marketing and sales, which BTW is necessary and cannot be overstated. Considering its existing price point. Not many companies would be able to do that and actually earn money with it.
What do you think of the colour of the bike? Does it look better in person? All subjective I know. just trying to decide whether it’s this one or the expert and putting wider tyres on the expert. Thanks
Nice review Barry. Thoughts on the bike after 9 months? I’m getting more and more obsessed with this bike but it’s not something I can go and buy immediately. Also undecided between the evo and standard version, and between comp and expert models
Dick Tchairdjian: It does but since I know my cadence intuitively (after riding with a cadence meter for multiple decades) I prefer to set the cadence option up to read, on your Garmin, battery current remaining as a percentage. This is easy to do and is part of Specialized "Mission Control" app.
lazurm I have no idea what you’re trying to say. Will my Garmin be able read and display the Cadence and the Power from the bike. The battery life would be nice too as well as the Di2 battery life and the gears.
@@Tchairdjian Sorry for the confusion. The Creo has a power meter but doesn't have a cadence meter [edit: it does have a cadence meter but, via the Mission Control, I've programmed my cadence readout on my Garmin to display battery percentage remaining]. It will not display di2 battery strength but, truly, that is never an issue as the di2 unit itself will warn you when to charge the battery and, at warning, you'll still have lots of subsequent chances to recharge.
lazurm thank you for your response. The Garmin has the ability to display a lot of data... there is no shortage of space. So I’m not worried about replacing the Cadence with battery life. The bike doesn’t come with a Mission Control display and I don’t want to buy one as I already have an expensive Garmin. I just want to use the information generated by the bike displayed on my Garmin. I presume the bike uses ANT+ or Bluetooth to transmit data like Watts/Power to the unit. It’s too bad there’s no built-in Cadence meter but at least I’m hoping the power information from the Power meter can be extracted in addition to the battery charge.
Appreciate your review. I demo'd the Evo just yesterday and rode my normal after work, hilly, mixed-terrain ride along with a few extra side trips to a few steep climbs. I am a Clydesdale and had used about 80% battery in 40 miles and 2000 feet of climbing. Obviously, the weight of the rider and the type of terrain have a lot to do with the range. I used Eco on the flat sections and then Sport and Turbo when it went uphill. I live right along the edge of the foothills in Colorado, so everything westerly is uphill and most of the other directions are rolling until I head home. I really had a good time riding the bike and even at my size, you could feel the motor kicking in once you got back on the pedals. The noise of the motor wasn't annoying, but pronounced enough that you knew when it was assisting you. Also, if you were riding next to another rider, they'd likely hear it as well if they were close. At first glance, they'd likely think it was just another Roubaix or Diverge. I have a Diverge, which they make in numerical sizes and ended up with the Large Creo which was close to the 58 Diverge. The position was a little more aggressive than the Diverge but on the Diverge I had tweaked the cockpit a bit. The marketing slogan is, "It's you, only faster!" My take on riding this type of bike is that I'm working just as hard, I'm just going to be out for more miles. With that said, I'd like to see a little more battery capacity in the internal battery as it would give me more range. I recognize the forthcoming add-on range extender battery would get you closer to 500 watt-hour but take away a bottle. So, given the progression in lithium battery tech, it would be nice if the internal battery were 500 Wh vs the 320 (maybe next year). It would also be nice if one could switch the modes without taking hands off the bar. So, yes, I'd really like to have one--probably the non-Evo model--but the cost right now is a big concern.
Steven Pedder: The motor sound can be greatly diminished during the times that it's heard (usually going uphill at 80-100 RPM in Turbo or Sport mode) by switching to a higher gear and, thus, reducing your cadence to around 60 RPM or slightly lower. This will reduce the sound significantly (not that it's loud) but will also result in a reduction of motor produced wattage efficiency, speeding up the battery use.
I am an older rider with a heart condition. If I want to ride with my younger friends I ride my Creo. I get the exercise I need and my friends don't drop me. If there is a serious headwind I can lead the group. Mostly I use the turbo mode for serious hills. I bought the road version but after trail riding with my wife who doesn't like riding on roads I concluded I needed the gravel tires. With the gravel tires I can jump between trails and road without any drop off in performance.
Me too
Wow very nice... it is all about fun ... and that bike will put a smile 😀 on your face....
Great review! I'll be using this to trying and convince my 67 year old mum to replace her road bike and MTB. She only uses the MTB on gravel tracks so this would be perfect. My dad has a Levo but she finds eMTBs a bit heavy for her to handle.
Superbe vélo 👍👏
Motor is a in house design, not from Specialized, but the german car supplier Mahle. Specialized added their software, and they payed for it of course, which is fine. The rest is marketing and sales, which BTW is necessary and cannot be overstated. Considering its existing price point. Not many companies would be able to do that and actually earn money with it.
What do you think of the colour of the bike? Does it look better in person? All subjective I know. just trying to decide whether it’s this one or the expert and putting wider tyres on the expert. Thanks
I think it looks nice :-)
Is this the chameleon green?
I tried one and was not so pleased with the control box on the top tube. I'd rather gave a switch like the Levo Sl has.
Switches are an after market add on. They aren't too expensive.
Nice review Barry. Thoughts on the bike after 9 months? I’m getting more and more obsessed with this bike but it’s not something I can go and buy immediately. Also undecided between the evo and standard version, and between comp and expert models
I don't own it so I can't give long term thoughts.
Does it have a built in Cadence and power meter, can I have that data displayed on my Garmin Edge 530/830 or similar units?
Dick Tchairdjian: It does but since I know my cadence intuitively (after riding with a cadence meter for multiple decades) I prefer to set the cadence option up to read, on your Garmin, battery current remaining as a percentage. This is easy to do and is part of Specialized "Mission Control" app.
lazurm I have no idea what you’re trying to say. Will my Garmin be able read and display the Cadence and the Power from the bike. The battery life would be nice too as well as the Di2 battery life and the gears.
lazurm by the way, I don’t want to be using the Mission Control. My phone battery won’t last otherwise. My Garmin battery lasts for many hours.
@@Tchairdjian Sorry for the confusion. The Creo has a power meter but doesn't have a cadence meter [edit: it does have a cadence meter but, via the Mission Control, I've programmed my cadence readout on my Garmin to display battery percentage remaining].
It will not display di2 battery strength but, truly, that is never an issue as the di2 unit itself will warn you when to charge the battery and, at warning, you'll still have lots of subsequent chances to recharge.
lazurm thank you for your response. The Garmin has the ability to display a lot of data... there is no shortage of space. So I’m not worried about replacing the Cadence with battery life. The bike doesn’t come with a Mission Control display and I don’t want to buy one as I already have an expensive Garmin. I just want to use the information generated by the bike displayed on my Garmin. I presume the bike uses ANT+ or Bluetooth to transmit data like Watts/Power to the unit. It’s too bad there’s no built-in Cadence meter but at least I’m hoping the power information from the Power meter can be extracted in addition to the battery charge.
Is that restricted to 25kph assist. Tx
Not in New Zealand
I'm questioning why Specialized is selling an electric bike for the price of an electric motorcycle. Greedy bastards.
What's the law in NZ regards ebikes. In the EU its crappy 25kph. I can piss faster!!!