Specialized Levo Alloy

Levo 4 Alloy Comp

Size - S4

Author - Mitch Hamilton

Lets get the spec and the components out of the way
the build kit I rode was the levo 4 comp alloy.
I left everything stock other than the following things as I thought they were necessary changes that I wanted to make to make the bike perform how I liked.

I changed the rotors from the Centrelines to Galfer Wave Discs as I prefer how they perform over the Centreline, less initial bite but more mid stroke modulation. I do prefer the Galfer pads but I did not change over to them as I wanted to see how the Sram metal pads held up with this rotor combo. I had a 220 up front with a 200 out back. This was my first experience with the new Mavens from Sram and I will say, what a great brake out of the box, heaps of power, enough modulation (with the rotor change) and the perfect match for the E bike. If your previous experience with Sram was the CODES or Guides these are a night and day difference and not having to bleed them every month or so to keep them going exactly right was a big plus for me! This brake is a perfect match and great to know that you will not need to change the brakes over for something better as these brakes are the perfect match.

I did end up changing the fork to the Fox 38, just the Performance model to keep it inline with the spec of the bike. The 36 up front is a great fork but for the riding I was taking the bike on definitely would have been under gunned with the big weight of this bike (we will get to that later). There isn't really much to say about the Fox 38 as they are a great fork and with it being the Performance model and not the Factory or Elite it's quite easy to set up. Just set your sag to your preferred setting, mine is 20%, I just turn the damper to being straight on and I was good to go on all the local Sydney trails from flowy blues to the steep blacks, the only thing that is worth messing around with is the volume tokens. I usually run 2 but I am on the heavier side of riders and this just keeps me from those harsh bottom outs. I think if you were getting the bike for the green/blue flowy or some of the more tame slow tech the Fox 36 would feel completely adequate and up to the task.

Then I did change the grips to my preferred grip and the saddle to my preferred one but this doesn't have any impact on the bike this is just personal preference.

Now onto the rest of the bike we will continue the suspension talk and lets have a talk about the Genie shock. This shock is Specialized take on the Fox Float X, a two-stage air rear shock designed for trail bikes that provides coil-like traction and linearity in the mid-stroke while offering superior bottom-out resistance via a progressive end-stroke. It uses a large, twin-positive air chamber design to reduce traction loss and bottom-outs. Now the real world riding with this shock was great. I have had lots of experience with the Float X and yes this shock does track really well and feel a lot more coil like than its baby brother. I was pleasantly surprised with this one as it was as simple as set my air pressure to the desired sag (30% as specified by Specialized), set the rebound and away you go. I did not bottom this shock out once (that I felt). It did have that bottomless feel in the shock, no it didn't make the bike feel like a big enduro or downhill bike but it never made me feel like it was clapping the suspension on harsh landings or big drops. One thing that I do have a complaint on was the mid stroke support of the shock. I do think this has something to do with the kinematics of the levo and you can add mid stroke bands into the outer air can but I didn't get around to doing that. The bike itself just loved using the majority of its travel, blowing through that mid stroke and getting caught by the end stroke, I am curious to try a volume band on one in the future but it wasn't a make or break for me just a note of the bike loving to cycle its travel. Overall the Genie shock does live up to the hype with being super supple and really hard to bottom out.

Lets talk drive unit and the whole levo package. My initial impressions with this bike is a big wow, it delivers the power so well no jarring motion just extremely smooth and easy to get along with. The motor packing a big 666 watts and 101 Nm of torque is plenty of grunt for anyone out there trying to get up the hill super quick. I did do a few days where I towed mates up the hill with the bike and it didn't miss a beat. But I think this motor shines where it makes the ride feel very natural even to use their marketing term Supernatural you will rarely want to take the bike out of trail as it delivers the power so well. The app offers great customization with the modes and power delivery even to how much battery consumption you want to use, and that big 840 wh battery is great I never was worried on rides that I was going to run out of battery before the body gave up or before I ran out of time to keep riding. note after the test period was completed specialized did release a motor update to up the wattage to 810w and the torque to 105nm 

Have you heard of full mount! This bike has it and you want it. The Eagle 90 drive train this bike is equipped with is the best mechanical drive train I have ever used! And with Srams design of ditching the hanger and mounting the mech straight to the frame no need to worry about breaking mechs. The Eagle 90 shifts amazing under load and makes me question why you would want an electronic mech on your bike ever again. In the time testing this bike I didn't have an issue with the shifting and that's what you want when owning a bike things to not break and you to be out riding. One thing to note is that the cage does sit quite low when you are in those climbing gears and paired with the 27.5 rear wheel it is a rock scraping magnet, I didn't break a cage but I have seen a few of them get bent (Sram offers replacement cages).

How does the bike ride is probably why you are here and reading this review.
Well to start the bike climbs amazing!!!!!!! HAHA yeah it's an e bike it should climb amazing, well no with that power delivery and how the motor works it means that you can tackle techy climbs much easier without the bike overrunning or doing a burnout on that stubborn rock underneath you. I did end up putting the bike into the low setting to see how this would change its descending characteristics but I think for what I gained on the down I lost double on the up. Perfect Segway onto descending. Out of the box on the S4 (large) that I rode the bike did feel really weird in the front end when turning the bike I was coming off a much longer rear centred bike and tried to adjust myself to it. But then when looking into why the bike felt like I was turning a ruler from the rear end I swapped it to long on the rear chain stay and this brings the rear centre from 435mm to 444mm (or there abouts) and from a lot of the bikes I have ridden I have found that having a good front centre to rear centre ratio means a lot into how the bike weights the front wheel and lets you corner the bike from a more mid bike position and keeps the bike slightly more stable at higher speeds. I do feel that Specialized did miss the mark here with size specific chain stays so everyone can have the same experience regardless of the size bike you are riding. Once this was sorted I did start meshing with the bike really well and did like how it rode, the big 55mm rise bars does have you in a good upright position. I will say one of the only things that is holding the bike back out of the tyres as I do like a heavier casing tyre than what is on the bike from the factory especially with the big weight of this particular model being a big 26kgs (or there abouts) a 1.5 kg extra weight over the carbon brother. Now that we are onto weight the weight when riding the bike isn't that noticeable, there has been chatter about the weight bias on the carbon model feeling off and making it feel front heavy especially with how far that battery goes up the top tube and where the swat storage is located. It's only when you need to lift the bike into the stand, over a fence, up a rockface or even onto the car where it is noticeable but in the full power e bike market this bike isn't that much heavier than the other bikes in this category. The bike itself was a big eye opener for me in terms of travel numbers and what you really need when riding the majority of Sydney and Wollongong trails, the 160/150 travel doesn't feel like that travel category of the past. The bike never made me feel like I needed my enduro bike to do a feature or a jump the bike was very confidence inspiring and makes me question do you really need that big boy travel E bike when this does everything with ease.

To conclude the levo 4 comp alloy review.
The bike is a well rounded trail full power E bike and does do everything you want it to do. Who is the bike for? I do think this bike would suit a lot of riders that want that e bike to be able to go anywhere and do everything with it being as confidence inspiring as it is you could tackle the gnarliest trails in your local network, but with its easy going geometry you can get a great deal of fun out of even those green trails!!!!

-Mitch
Workshop Manager - The Bike Shed Mortdale