ELECTRIC A VENUES
Does doubling your money get you twice the performance? We pit two e-road bikes – Specialized's S-Works Turbo Creo SL against Cannondale's SuperSix EVO Neo to find out…
I’ve been using an ebike and, gradually, I’m being converted. It’ll never replace my nonpowered bike, but some days I appreciate the help. But would I spend £10K on one? No, but I’m almost tempted by the Specialized Creo on
We all wish we could tear apart the Tour de France with the youthful vigour of 21-year-old Tadej Poga ar on the last important day of the grandest of tours. Sadly, however, age and finite fitness levels are going to stand in your way. But what if you could ride a bike that handled with the same sort of vibrancy as the legendary Cannondale SuperSix EVO, or coarse road-crushing Specialized Roubaix, while giving you a massive 250-watt power boost? A bike you ride just like your own but which, when it comes to the toughest of climbs, helps you achieve elite-level ascending speeds for amateur-level e orts? Welcome to the world of elite e-road bikes.
In the past, ebikes came in two distinct flavours. There’s the mid-mounted (bottom bracket), motordriven bikes that come with plenty of power and torque but look a little ‘di erent’ and are fairly hefty in weight. The other is the lightweight, hub-mounted system that delivers a less intrusive option based around just enough (but possibly not enough) assistance.
More recently, however, the advent of mid-mount systems, such as Germany’s Fazua and Specialized’s in-house developed SL1.1 (that debuts on the Creo) has muddied the waters. These o er low weight and retain the power and torque that’s inherent in bottom bracket-mounted systems.
Holding up the hub-motor end impressively is the Spanish start-up e-bike motion that our SuperSix EVO Neo comes equipped with. This system has seen constant improvements since its launch back in 2017 (it was first seen with Orbea on the Gain range) and the recent acquisition of the company by German tech giants Mahle, who helped Specialized develop the Turbo Creo’s motor, has seen further investment into this lightweight option.
With the Turbo Creo SL, Specialized has unashamedly aimed for the best of the best, regardless of price. The specification confirms it has left nothing to chance from nose to tail: a 1x drivetrain that mixes Dura-Ace Di2 with a long cage Shimano XTR rear mech, top-of-the-range Roval CLX50 carbon wheels with an advanced aero profile and shod with S-Works tyres. The bar/stem/seatpost and saddle are all S-Works too, and Specialized also throws in a bottle cage-mounted, range-extending piggyback battery as standard (with the Cannondale you can get a range extender at additional cost).
The Turbo Creo is most reminiscent of the brand’s iconic Roubaix. The geometry is based around the cobble-gobbling endurance bike and even comes replete with the adjustable Future Shock 2.0 front damper to take the rough out of the road. There are
less eye-wateringly expensive options in the whole Turbo Creo range (starting at £5500 for the Comp), but nevertheless it is clear that the Creo is aimed squarely at the premium end of the ebike market.
Cannondale’s SuperSix EVO Neo range consists of three models: the range-topping Dura-Ace Di2 equipped 1 (£8000), the Ultegra-equipped 2 (£4999), and the base model 3 (£3600) with Shimano 105. In its non-assisted form, the SuperSix EVO has been one of our go-to bikes throughout its illustrious history. It’s been the benchmark for race-bike ride quality and impeccable handling. They all share the same frameset (based on current CyclingPlus Bike of the Year, the SuperSix EVO), which makes for a racy-assisted machine. We selected the mid-range 2 model as it comes in close to half the price of the premium Creo SL.
Cannondale went with ebikemotion’s X35 system for its natural feel and lesser weight penalty – the range-topping 1 is claimed to weigh in at 11.3kg, while our Neo 2 tips the scales at 12.1kg in a Large. The mechanical Ultegra groupset is joined by
Cannondale’s own alloy RDe wheelset. They haven’t skimped when it comes to the finishing kit, by including the smartly aero SAVE carbon bar and stem, along with a carbon post and Prologo saddle.
RIDING FOR RANGE
One of the biggest fears for any ebike user is ‘range anxiety’: running out of juice mid-ride. Of course, both of these bikes can be ridden without power (and both have settings to ride in the ‘o ’ position), but while you don’t have any real drag from the systems, you are riding a bike that’ll be heavier than your standard one. That’s fine if you are pootling home across the fens, but it’s much more worrying if you are out conquering cols.
Specialized hopes to alleviate this with the inclusion of the range-extending battery. On the turbo, the SL1-320 battery is claimed to have a 130km range from its 320wh capacity, to which the range extender adds 65km from its 160wh battery, for a total 480w/h capacity and 195km/121miles. In our experience, this seems optimistic. The Cannondale has an internal 252w/h battery with a claimed 75km range, something that we found out to be something of an underestimation.
Out on the road, we’ve had plenty of time to get to grips with both bikes and to exploit the available assistance. With its huge range claims, we wanted to see just how far the Turbo Creo SL could get from its dual-battery setup. We were impressed, managing 172.168km, with 1324m of elevation, on a warm dry day. In our experience, battery levels can be a ected by dramatic temperature changes, with cold weather tending to be more detrimental than warmer days.
The Cannondale also impressed as we reached a distance that busted its claimed range. We managed 122km, with 1124m of elevation in similar weather conditions. A caveat has to be put on these distances, however, as ebikes are so dependent on various factors, such as the rider’s weight, the average speed and the topography. Remember, for most of the time during a ride you are going to be going above the motor limit of 25kph, so the assistance only comes
BE AWARE THAT EBIKES DON’T GIVE YOU A FREE RIDE; THEY ARE AT THEIR BEST WHEN YOU’RE PUTTING THE EFFORT IN TOO
in when you really need it, such as riding into biting headwinds or on long arduous climbs.
When looking at e-road bikes, be aware they don’t give you a free ride; the bikes are at their best when you’re putting the e!ort in too. Sitting up when you hit a climb to let the motor do the work will run the battery down quickly, limiting your range. But put in the e!ort and the bike works with you, with clever algorithms in the torque and power settings closely matching your cadence. If you’re putting in the lion’s share of e!ort, the systems won’t waste their own energy when you’re pushing yours. They just help maintain your e!orts.
Both machines will drop around 250w of power into the drivetrain at their highest output. The Specialized has three modes, each of which steps up to match your power input up to a max of 240w, while Cannondale’s ebikemotion ramps up to 100 per cent assistance. Both can be paired to clever apps where the motor settings and engine maps are altered to best match what you want in assistance. If you like the idea of launching away from tra"c lights with bags of power on tap, you can have it. If you want to ramp down the power on climbs to make sure your training is better, then be our guest. With the Cannondale’s ebikemotion app, you can even link to a heart-rate monitor and match motor assistance to your heart rate (and an excellent measure of e!ort), in e!ect using the Evo Neo as a proper training tool for heart-rate zonal training rides.
Both bikes o!er battery replacement programmes. Specialized rates the internal battery to 500 charge cycles – or two years/300 cycles on the battery warranty. A recycling programme is in place, so the Creo’s battery won’t end up in landfill. ebikemotion also rates its internal battery to 500 charge cycles with replacement batteries available through your local dealers.
HOW ‘BIKE’ ARE THEY?
The S-Works Turbo Creo SL may look somewhat di!erent to a standard bike with its large down tube and oversized bottom bracket area, but when it comes to on-road dynamics, Specialized has done a superb job. The weight distribution is spot on, with most of the additional mass of the battery and motor set low down and towards the centre of the bike. Add into that a lower bottom bracket and a long wheelbase (thanks to a slacker-than-standard head angle and more fork o!set) that adds stability. Its shortened up the back end with chainstays of just 425mm – the shortest you’ll find on a mid-motor equipped ebike. This means that the Creo SL rides like a standard bike with a wheelbase that helps it feel nimble. It also means that Specialized has adopted much wider, mountain bike-like Boost spacing on the hubs: 12 x 148mm on the rear, which helps maintain the ideal chainline for smooth gear shifts, although we aren’t sure why it’d adopt the wider 12 x 110mm on the front.
This could be an issue if you ever have to replace the wheels. That said, you’d never look to upgrade from what is a genuinely premium wheelset. On the road, it feels very similar to Specialized’s brilliant Roubaix with the combination of a sti! responsive chassis and a supple, shock-supported front end making for a very smooth ride. The 13.7kg weight never feels like an issue when whizzing along, and the light aero wheels provide plenty of fast fizz over rolling terrain. The handling is superbly stable and,
despite getting a sense of the weight when cornering, it’s so well balanced it actually feels planted and rapid when leaning into an apex.
It’s when the road rises and you get into proper climbs that the Creo makes wonderful sense. The assistance feeds in subtly at first, just a gentle bit of help. When it’s in sync with you and you can feed o the power meter display on your head unit (the Creo has a built-in power meter), it encourages you to put in maximum e ort and to try to push a faster cadence. Specialized’s tag line for the Creo is, You Only Faster; and that certainly holds up when you’re climbing. The SL impresses downhill, too, with the low-centre weighted balance of the frame inspiring confidence and the bike feeling so stable, even when swinging from one lean angle to another through S-type bends. The Dura-Ace brakes and 160mm rotors do a decent job of controlling and stopping, although when we tried the Creo in Switzerland, we did find that on long alpine descents you could
What goes up... The extra mass of these ebikes makes them fast and fun when it comes to descending too seriously warm up even 160mm rotors. If we were intending to use the SL in the mountains regularly, we’d be tempted to switch in a mountain bike 180mm rotor up front for extra security to counter extra weight.
The top tube of the Creo contains the Turbo connect unit, featuring Ant+ and BLE connectivity, a Ride mode switch and an on/o switch, and battery charge level LED indicator, with twin visibility for both range extender and internal battery.
The bike can talk to the compatible head unit of your choice or through a phone and the Mission control app. The app o ers power personalised through sliders within it, giving infinite motor tuning to your own preference. You can alter both support and peak power in each mode. The Creo’s power delivery coming from the centre of the bike feels very natural, and with the combined power meter, it’s easy to gauge your e ort versus that of the bike. The Creo feels as though it’s helping out more than the SuperSix EVO Neo, even though its power and torque outputs are closely matched.
The mid-mount system is wider than a standard bottom bracket, which means Specialized has to run a 1x drivetrain for chainline accuracy. It combines a 46t chainring with a wide-range 11-42 cassette (borrowed from Shimano’s XTR mountain bike
EVEN WITH THE MOTOR OFF, THE LACK OF DRAG MEANS THE CANNONDALE JUST FEELS LIKE A ROAD BIKE
group). The gear range may have a few larger jumps, but we didn’t find it a hindrance. The chainline is excellent: so quiet and e!cient, chain security is good even on rougher terrain, and the Di2-assisted shifts are clean and crisp every time.
The one thing we noticed with the Creo is motor noise. It’s not a racket, but compared to the ebikemotion’s X35 motor, you can hear its e"orts. You could easily ride the Cannondale alongside nonebike riders and they’d be hard pushed to know you were on an assisted bike. With the Creo, they’d guess from the low hum of the motor – although when the system was o", we were impressed with the lack of drag in the drivetrain, not something we’ve found on other mid-mount designs from the likes of Bosch, Yamaha or Shimano.
In comparison, the Cannondale is a silent killer. The X35 motor goes about its business with little in the way of noise, while its minimal size is hidden on the drive-side by the wide 11-34 cassette and on the non-drive by the 160mm disk rotor. This bike is one stealthy e-machine. Even when riding it with the motor o", the lack of drag means it just feels like a road bike, albeit a slightly heavier one than we’re used to. The bike is shaped like an EVO should be, so the reach is long and the stack is low. It has a racy road bike wheelbase of around a metre on the Large that we tested, and short racy chainstays, so the bike feels nimble.
Control of the Cannondale’s ebikemotion motor system is simple with colour coded lights on the control button denoting both power level and battery reserves. Press this top-tube mounted button (called iWOC 1) to turn it on and the ring LED shines white, press and hold and it turns green (low assistance), orange (medium), red (full). This is also the battery level indicator: white is 75-100%, green is 75-50%, Orange – 50-25%, red -25%, flashing red means less than 10%. It’ll connect with your phone via Bluetooth via the full-of-functionality ebikemotion app when you switch on (it flashes blue for Bluetooth).
We love that Cannondale hasn’t compromised the EVO Neo. It hasn’t made it less of a road machine than its un-assisted cousin and it shows that the company is taking the EVO Neo seriously as a platform – and its riders seriously as sports riders too. We think the claimed range-busting test figures we achieved are down to the fact that we rode it like a bike and not an ebike. On the climbs, the Neo is brilliant. The chassis is responsive and sti" in all the right places and it rewards your e"orts with a power boost from the X35 that never takes precedence over your own endeavours. Just like the Specialized it rewards the e"ort you put in.
The EVO Neo’s contact points are also fantastic.
BOTH HAVE PROPER ROAD BIKE DYNAMICS OF HANDLING, RESPONSIVENESS, COMFORT AND CONTROL
The SAVE bar’s shape o!ers a great drop – and comfortable holds on the hoods, and the flattened tops too – while the Prologo Dimension saddle is one of our favourite short designs. Its drivetrain is based around the legendary e"ciency of Shimano’s mechanical Ultegra groupset – slick, e"cient and dependable.
The alloy wheels make for laterally sti! yet comfortable riding, but we’d have preferred a racier tyre than the Vittoria Rubino to add a bit more spark to a bike that has plenty to begin with. This Neo takes everything that’s great about the EVO and doesn’t lose that beautifully balanced combination of performance, handling and comfort when adding assistance. It feels like a genuinely accomplished road bike that just happens to help out the rider.
LAST WORD
If you think you’d benefit from an ebike but have so far been put o! by the more leisurely outlook of most electric-assisted machines, then these two are great examples of the absolute opposite of that. Both are proper road bikes: the Specialized for endurance riders and the Cannondale for racier-shaped ride fans. Both have proper road-bike dynamics of handling, responsiveness, comfort and control, and we heartedly recommend both. If you can a!ord the Specialized, you won’t be disappointed by its power, massive range and all-rounder abilities (it has generous tyre clearances so gravel is a proper option too).
Specialized has achieved something brilliant with the Creo. It is a massively impressive machine, with the power delivery smartly achieved and matching your e!orts seamlessly. Its handling is endurance bike gold, comfortably smooth yet with handling to excite but not frighten. Its communication with a Garmin and the Mission control app is impressive. It does, however, cost a huge amount, but you’ll never need to upgrade anything and, if you can a!ord the best, then look no further.
The Cannondale, however, takes the absolute best of what the SuperSix EVO has to o!er in terms of its pure race-bike heaven handling and adds in a very clever, light, tuneable and an incredibly useable e-assist system.
For our money, we’d pocket that extra six grand and go for the Neo EVO every time. Its combination of racy road-bike dynamics and an e-assist that gives just enough boost to aid (yet still ensures you’ll have a proper workout every time) is brilliant. If you ride with fitter and/or faster cyclists and you want to keep pace – or even set the tempo – and have fun with it, then this is the way to go.
That said give it another decade or so and the Creo is the bike we’d ride into our dotage. Comfort, control and power assistance make for veteran rider heaven. We’re just hoping that our pension funds will extend to the price of the S-Works when we absolutely need it.