RUSSELL’S SPECIALIZED TURBO LEVO SL EXPERT CARBON £8,500

The Levo SL has carried Russ far and wide without complaint

I’ve been riding e-bikes since their nascence. My work – doing photoshoots carrying heavy kit – made me a willing early adopter. As such, I’ve followed their evolution closely and have been lucky enough to ride some outstanding bikes, welcoming the advantages and accepting the tradeoffs of increased weight and unusual handling. I’ve always accepted, too, that at some point the motor or battery will fail, or need some TLC from a person more qualified than me – not so much a disadvantage as just part of the maintenance deal that comes with electrically-assisted machines.

Out of the box, the smaller-thanmost 320Wh battery of the Levo SL caused me some concern regarding its range and power, but the bike has turned out to have a close to perfect power-to-weight ratio. You get out what you put in, which translates to the bestriding version of yourself on any given day. As reported last month, the range has barely troubled me enough to use the battery extender, either.

I have over 2,000km under the wheels and am now enough months in that I’m no longer surprised by the bike’s natural ride feel and agile handling. But what has recently occurred to me is that, unusually, it’s had no battery or motor-related downtime. The Levo SL hasn’t had an easy time of it, either – the fact it rides so well means that I’ve used it as much for play as for work, doing long days on the sort of extreme routes where I’d normally hesitate to take an e-bike, because a motor fail will mean a heavy ride home. I maintain my bikes well, but I’d simply not expected it to be so reliable in terms of its electrics. Not one grumble, whine or complaint, Rather, a motor that continues to support me churning out the miles over whatever terrain I present it with.

Unfortunately, I’ve not had so much success with the wireless SRAM AXS mech I fitted. Lulled into a false sense of security about batteries in general, I either missed or ignored the lowbattery warning that comes via the app. I don’t carry a spare for it, so found myself a long way from home with no way to change gear. In a ‘lightbulb’ moment I raided the battery in my AXS dropper post, figuring I needed gears more, then the motor reliably kicked in and we carried on as normal. www.specialized.com