2022 Specialized Turbo Levo Comp Alloy Electric Mountain Bike Review

E-Bikes have been a polarizing thing over the past few years, and it seems like the stance is softening, mainly due to the fact that more people are getting on them and enjoying all that they have to offer. In the mountain bike community, these pedal-assist bikes can make quick work of some of the more technical and longer climbs, and while some purists may feel like it’s using technology to do what’s supposed to be mechanical work, there’s no denying that these bikes are just a whole lot of fun. We got a chance to head out on the 2022 Specialized Turbo Levo Comp Alloy recently, and quite simply, we were blown away at the capabilities and overall good time that this bike provided.

First and foremost, it’s still a bike. It’s got two wheels, handlebars, a frame, pedals, and a chain. When you sit on it and push down on the pedals, it goes.Whatever the bare minimum of things to make a bike, it has. But there’s so much more going on here. We start with Specialized’s alloy frame that sits on 150 mm of travel, so it falls more in line with the Stumpjumper Evo geometry as more of a mid-travel enduro ride. While the Turbo Levo bikes in the Specialized line come in both carbon and aluminum, and we’re excited to try the carbon as well, but it didn’t seem to need the carbon upon our first impressions. Maybe we’re wrong, we’re still learning here as well. On this Comp build, we get Sram GX shifters and derailleur, a Fox Rhythm 36160 mm fork, and a Fox Float X Performance rear shock. Stopping this 52-pound beast is a set of Sram Code R disc brakes, with the S5 size getting a 220 mm front rotor and a 200 rear. There’s no carbon found anywhere on this bike, all other parts and pieces are aluminum, and that’s fine with us.

At a Glance:

2022 Specialized Turbo Levo Comp Alloy

With a bike this heavy and with a considerable amount of travel, you may think it’s going to be cumbersome in the corners. We can talk about this more when it comes to performance, but the workaround here is the use of the mullet wheel setup. They use a 29x2.6 wheel and tire in the front with a 27.5x2.6 set in the back. This allows for greater maneuverability and cornering—two things that are very important if you’re wrangling around a big bike. On a normal pedal bike, this wheel setup works better in freeride and enduro scenarios butisn’t quite as effective for trail or cross-country riding. When you add the motor to the equation, it starts to make a whole lot of sense.

For the technological side, Specialized uses their Turbo Full Power 2.2 motor, 700Wh battery, and Turbo Connect Unit that delivers 90 Nm of torque and 565 watts of power. We never felt that this system was underpowered, and in some cases, we felt the need to adjust the output to match the riding that we were doing, which is all controllable through the Specialized Mission Control app on your phone. It’s a crazy setup that has a lot more going on than we were able to access. Riders can adjust the settings to provide more or less power per setting, customizing the output based on your needs and wants.Since this is more of an initial impression rather than a long-term review, we didn’t play around a whole lot with it, but it certainly seems that there’s an endless amount of customization you can do.

Climbing, this bike is an absolute beast. When you find the right gear in trail mode (level 2), it just goes. We found some of the punchier climbs here in Stowe—things we can’t normally clean on our normal bikes—and the Turbo Levo just sailed right up them. Not only were the sections steep, rocky, and rooty, but they were also quite slick given the humidity and moisture. The bike seemed not to care. That was the more technical side, but when it came to normal climbs, even up some of the flowier trails here, it was as much fun going up as it is coming down. You can lean into berms on the uphill, pedaling through and actually accelerating uphill. For Matt and me, neither of us have been on an E-Bike before, this was an eye-opening experience for sure.It’s not like we have a problem with climbing on normal bikes, this was just a totally newaspect to riding that totally made us grown adults giggle like small children. Flatter sections, whether littered with obstacles or not, were also a total blast. We have a lot of singletrack here, and most of it is still somewhat natural with a lot of roots. The blend of the low center of gravity, stable weight, and plush suspension allowed us to hammer through these sections like we never had before, again highlighting a new experience that is not soon to be forgotten. In downhill and more flowy sections, the agility of the bike was likely the most surprising attribute. Matt can speak better to that than I, but as a 45-year-oldsomewhat conservative rider, I felt quite comfortable on undulating downhill terrain, both smooth and not. Since you can accelerate quickly, you can also get more speed for jumps easier, and with the weight of the motor keeping the bike steady in the air, I felt quite comfortable, and normally I do not. I loved the lower mass and the agility of the smaller back wheel in these situations.

Philosophically, how much does this bike deviate from a normal one? Is it a completely different thing, or is it still a mountain bike? These thoughts and questions were prevalent the whole day, and while I don’t think we came up with any concrete answers, a few ideas kept creeping in. For one, it’s tough to ride an E-Bike with a non-E-Biker. The motor makes it too easy, and you don’t even realize how fast you’re going compared to the normal bike. As a result, you either must ride solo, which many of us don’t have an issue with, or convert your riding buddies to E-Bikers. Another thought is that trail networks become a lot more accessible with this bike. We have a few different pods here in Stowe, and normally you can ride one or two throughout the day. With the Turbo Levo, all five are in play. Basically, you’re using one network to access another, and so forth. You can also use back roads, class-V work roads, or fire roads to help you get from one place to another. It really opens up a ton of terrain and possibilities. That was my conclusion—the possibilities on this bike are infinite. With 5 hours of running time, you can get a whole lot done on the Turbo Levo, and we can’t wait to get on this thing again.