Specialized Como Turbo SL 5.0 ebike review: More than a city bike? - MrLiambi's blog

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Sunday 27 November 2022

Specialized Como Turbo SL 5.0 ebike review: More than a city bike?

Typically, when we get hold of an ebike on loan, it's a bit of a gamechanger for how we move around London, unlocking a way wider radius of locations that we're happy (or even keen) to cycle to, and helping us learn new streets and routes.

Sometimes, though, that effect isn't quite as impressive as we'd like, and while Specialized has some really superb ebikes in its range, we haven't been convinced by the Turbo Como SL 5.0 - it's felt at times a bit like simply having our own version of the rental ebikes that Lime and others have dotted around the capital, for better and worse.

Design

  • Available in yellow, dark grey and silver
  • Non-removable battery integrated into frame
  • Built-in lights and attached basket

The Turbo Como SL is a fun-looking bike, especially in the resplendent yellow version we've been riding, and sure stands out from the crowd. Whether you want an ebike this expensive to do just that might be up to the individual, but on its own merits, we think it does look great.

It has a chunky, relaxed frame and fat tyres that make it really comfortable to ride along, the definition of a cruising bike. This also makes it great for running errands or shorter journeys - when you're 40 minutes into a ride you might wish you could leverage a more powerful posture, though.

The bike has really bright and solid built-in lights that are both safe and also bright enough to actually be useful in spotlighting broken glass or potholes to avoid in the dark, which is fairly rare even in nicer ebikes. A small display between the handlebars also gives you some basic ride information (and the time).

Where things fall down a little is when you start to live with such a bulky bike. For one thing, the Como is heavy, like most ebikes, making it a bit of a pain to get up or down stairs if you need to. This weight is exacerbated by its large size, with wide handlebars and an attached basket that are great for comfort but bad for storage.

The cherry on top is a battery that cannot be removed, meaning charging the bike up is a question of getting it near some mains power. This makes the bike basically impossible to consider unless you have ground-floor storage for it and enough room to charge it.

Given how it's marketed as a city-dwelling errand bike, we can only see it comfortably fitting in a sizeable garage - there aren't many of those in London, although people with one should at least be able to afford what is a very expensive bike.

Assistance and ride

  • Three levels of assist
  • Internal gear hub

The Turbo Como SL has a pretty simple control system involving an on/off button on its frame, and a wheel of three LED lights that indicates what level of assistance you're using. Pressing on the wheel cycles it up a notch.

There are three options in total, and we're surprised by how negligible the first one is - you will likely question whether it's working if you're used to other ebikes like us, and we can see why it gets such an expansive range using this option.

The middle assistance level is more like what other bikes offer as "low" in our experience, while only the maximum level of assist felt like it offered the acceleration and zip that we'd expect. This makes the bike more of an option for those who want to take it easy but don't necessarily need to move around in a rush much of the time.

The ride itself is really nice and smooth thanks to those fat tyres and a generous saddle, while the step-through design makes it great for most body types, and means getting on or off the bike is trivial.

There's plenty of room for panniers, too, while the attached basket on the front is really handy for moving things around or nipping to the shops. A lack of suspension does mean that things in the basket will bounce around a bit, but that's no real issue.

The problem is that between the fairly middling assist levels and the size of the bike, we felt more like we were cycling a Lime bike than a super-premium design piece at times - that's not a feeling we can fully explain, but it's also not one that inspires faith in the Turbo Como SL.

Features and range

  • 150km maximum range (60km in turbo mode)
  • Mission Control app

The Turbo Como SL's boasted range of 150km applies in the lowest of its three assistance modes, unsurprisingly, and bumping things up to the only mode we really enjoyed using does hit your range hard.

60km might sound like plenty, but if you're cyling a modest 10km to meet some friends, then the same again to get back, you've killed a third of your battery in one fell swoop. This means you'll be charging the bike at least once a week if you're using it remotely regularly.

As we've detailed above, that's not the easiest thing to do with a bike this size and shape, so we do think that it's a slightly underwhelming showing on the range side of things.

We're pleased that Specialized has played its cards right as far as connectivity goes, though. You can very easily use the Turbo Como SL without any smart bells or whistles, just turning it on and off manually and locking it carefully.

If you prefer, though, there's also a Mission Control app to give you some more features, which lets you estimate your battery levels ahead of a ride, manage your assist levels with more precision, and a few other smart little touches.

This app works pretty well, although the reality of everday life meant that we still found ourselves leaving it out of the equation and cycling the Turbo Como SL without it. After all, this isn't the sort of bike you ride for exercise, so we didn't really find we needed many insights about our riding.



Source : https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/reviews/163298-specialized-como-turbo-sl-ebike-review

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