Specialized Creo SL First Ride
Early this year, we were asked by Specialized UK to meet up and take out the latest Specialized Creo SL for the day. We met at a location fairly local to us and Gary in particular was able to test the bike on familiar roads. We were keen to see how the bike performed with its 240 Watt nominal power and obviously its legal limit of 25 Kph for the assist. As many keen road riders, we were concerned about the 25 Kph limit and how useful the bike actually would be.
Meeting in Church Stretton, we headed straight up over the Burway, a 20% straight from cold and straight away we realised the potential of this bike. We were soon moving up the power modes out of Eco mode into Sport mode. Changing up into Turbo mode even made the 20% fun delivering twice the riders input power. The Specialized 1.1 motor deilvers 240 Watt nominal and also peak power, it manages this over and incredible range of cadence from 60-110 RPM. The motor has no resistance once over the threshold allowing you to ride as if it were a tarmac.
Descending back down from the top of the Long Mynd, down Aston Bank, the bike handled like a dream with the extra weight of the battery perfectly placed for a balanced ride and the hydraulic disk brakes proved their worth. The consistent support of the Specialized 1.1 motor gives a natural riding feel all around the lanes and b-roads with its smooth power delivery, whether you are accelerating or just spinning keeping the bike at the 25 Kph mark.
25 miles in and we stopped for a coffee at the Bridges pub. At this point I realised that even though there is a perfectly top tube display with battery level along with the power level, that I'd only lost two bars of battery (out of ten). That meant Turbo mode all the way back!.
Using Turbo to climb back over the Long Mynd was a hoot, enabling me to stay out of the saddle all the way back up until it levels out, resisting the urge to ease my burning legs and just let the motor do all of the work.
Once up at the top, we did a few of the gravel paths showing the versatility of the bike before the final descent back to Church Stretton. All in I had used just 40% battery once we were back in Stretton. The Creo SL comes as standard with 320Wh of battery but an additional 160Wh range extender can be fitted into the bottle cage giving you an extra 50% range, judging by my battery consumption on a hilly 30 mile loop that would give a range of around 100 miles. Obviously, rider weight and how much effort you put in along with the route can affect this massively.
Massive thanks to Specialized for the day and the bikes to ride. We now have a Specialized Crec SL Comp Carbon Evo in store available as a test bike set up with the gravel tyres on it. We could swap it over to road tyres if you wanted to try it out exclusively on the road.
Specialized Creo SL Comp Carbon Evo Test bike. Click HERE for details.
