2026 Specialized Turbo Levo R S-Works Long Term Review

If there was a time when I claimed “my job is hard,” this is it. Writing articles for you fine folk to read as you settle into your first, second, or maybe even third morning coffee weighs on my shoulders. The articles themselves are hard to write. Add a hundred newton metres and a hefty price tag, and there is very little room for error in these lines. Like a short travel rig on gnarly terrain, I have to pick my way through some of the details that make the Specialized Levo R a special bike. It is special not just by name but also in how it rides here in BC.

When the shiny new S-Works Levo R appeared at my door in early February, I was preparing for its moment in the spotlight during a 12-day stint in May. A 7-day stage race and bike festival were coming to town, and I was going to be photographing it. The best tool for the job is an eMTB with a big battery and high wattage, and the Levo R’s 840Wh battery and 850W peak power seemed promising.

Turns out, the 7-day BC Bike Race is actually 12 days of madness. Arriving a couple of days before BC Bike Race itself, and staying for the BC Bike Fest events after it, like the Megavolt and the DH, meant that I would need all the fighting power I could get on the transportation front. Being based on Vancouver Island and including the incredible Campbell River, Cumberland, Parksville and Cowichan Valley trail networks, the shorter travel Levo R seemed like the perfect bike, at least on paper.

In reality, I could have used a little more of some things and a little less of some others when the dust settled.

On my First Look, I covered the important basics that make up the Levo R. TLDR: It is a 130/140mm trail bike with three different geometry adjustments and an 840Wh removable battery feeding a 111Nm, 850W Brose 3.1 S-Works Motor. There is an immeasurable amount of carbon fibre cladding the Levo R and its components for a sub-50lb running weight. The price tag was and still is eye-watering, but the more I used the S-WORKS badged Levo R, the more I figured out who and what it is for. My initial remarks remain true, this might be one bike Specialized sells the most of (probably not in the S-Works trim).

I’ve photographed the BC Bike Race a few times now and always while using an eMTB. There are a few reasons for this, but the main one is: Pro XC riders are goddamn fast. There are times when the 22-lb XC bikes with pro athletes on them pull away from me on gravel roads. This requires some course pre-planning to shoot the event. I will often leave an hour before the race starts and find 2-3 key locations from which to shoot the race leaders.

Having done the event a few times helps with the logistics. While the race is happening up front with sub-2-hour course times, the back of the pack can be out there, battling the elements for 6+ hours, 7 days in a row. My job is to provide imagery for the race report and marketing material to be used throughout the year so that people keep showing up. It can be a stressful responsibility. I need a bike that is ready to go every morning at 06:00 and ride often at speeds on the edge of comfort, down some super fun BC singletrack.

The Levo R’s job is simple. An 840Wh battery has a fighting chance to last long enough to do some serious fire road blasting. I often cut the course in creative ways to get ahead of the pack as many times as I can throughout the stage. This can mean riding up black diamond-rated downhill trails before racers arrive. Torque, traction, agility and reliability are key. I found the Levo R to deliver plenty in these aspects. While I haven’t entirely figured out all the customization of the app and the user interface, I came to like how I can change the character of the motor with a simple click.

• Do I want Universal Settings for a good balance of power delivery and battery life?
• Should I go for Battery Life for all-day performance with a bit more work on my end?
• Maybe I have No Time to Waste to get to where I need to go and have range anxiety.

With the app interface, I can tune the motor’s character on the fly. I used this more than I thought I would.

Levo R Motor Specs

Regular Levos get 105Nm of torque and 810W power output, while the S-Works models bump that up to 111Nm and 850W, respectively. A couple of years ago, I found the 85Nm output of the Bosch motors to be perfectly adequate for the riding I was doing. They were reliable and often went tens of thousands of kilometres without a hiccup. For newer motors with 100+ Nm of output, given the situations we are putting them in, failure rates are increasing rapidly. While I haven’t had any issues with the S-Works 3.1 motor on the Levo, I would be careful not to redline it on my personal bike. Try driving your car in 1st gear for a month, redlining the shit out of it and tell me how the engine and transmission are doing. No motor likes full output all the time.

Battery Life

The 840Wh battery in Eco and Trail modes has plenty of range. While covering BCBR, 1500-1700 metres of climbing is common, and on most days, I was no lower than 45% on my battery. With the 280Wh range extender, total capacity is pushed to 1120Wh, and that is good news for people traversing all day or carrying more weight. At 165lb (72kg), I do not stress the batteries out all that much. Then there is the charger supplied with the S-Works Levo R. It may be the best charger I’ve seen supplied with any bike. The rather large brick comes in its own carry case and has 12A of output. Non S-works models come with a smaller, 4A charger, which is fine. The S-Works 12A charger has 4 charging modes to choose from: Standard, Fast, Eco, and 80%.

In standard mode, the charger will put out 4-6 Amps. This means 2-3 hours to charge the 840Wh battery. On Fast mode, all 12A and 800W of power is unleashed and can get the battery to 80% in less than an hour. That’s enough to do two 1500-meter (4500ft) rides in a day with a little lunch break in between. Obviously, charging the battery at 12A daily will reduce its lifespan dramatically, so use this mode sparingly. Specialized does not have any specific warnings printed anywhere as far as I can see. Eco mode is great for overnight charging. I don’t often charge my ebikes unattended but if you do, this should be the mode to do it in. Lastly, the 80% charge is great for squeezing the last bit of life out of your battery in the long run. Lithium batteries and their needs and all that.

How did the charger come into play for me at BCBR? Well, when you have a media team rolling 8-9 eMTBs deep chasing racers and rushing back to do edits, the outlet and power requirements are high. When we can, we often tap into power poles in parks that will allow 2-3 bikes to be charged simultaneously, as 10 laptops and cameras also need to be charging at the same time. We often trip a breaker and have to start the process over again. With the 12A charger, I could finish my charging in 45 minutes and get out of the way of the rest of the crew to do theirs.

I also charged my cameras and laptop with my Bluetti powerbank that was powering my bougie RV fridge for 12 days. A 120W solar panel setup kept it topped up without a single need to plug into the grid. I was content with my setup and did not have any range or charging anxieties. If you want to purchase the 12A charger for your (non S-Works) Levo, it’s $850 CAD. The charging port on the Levo is also the best in the industry. It just works perfectly and stays covered when riding.

S-Works Levo Components

SRAM Motive Ultimate Brakes

On the component front, the S-Works model leaves very little to be desired. Let’s start with the Motive Ultimate Brakes from SRAM. Motives are SRAM’s successor to Codes in mineral oil form. As the industry slowly completes its shift to mineral oil architecture, improvements overall performance of brake systems are massive. Heavy bikes need powerful brakes and the Motives deliver on that front. With 200mm rotors on the front and back of the Levo R, I had all the power I needed when it mattered the most.

After my initial rides on the Levo R, I hung it on a hook in my office for a few weeks. I haven’t been riding eMTBs this winter until BCBR. When I picked up the Levo R to perform a pre-race tune, I was bummed to see leaky rear calliper halves that spoiled the rear pads. Sanding and cleaning did not revive them, so I replaced the rear pads with a set of MTX Golds I had lying around. The improvement in brake performance has been appreciable. The Gold pads from MTX resist fading and suit the intended use of eMTBs well. The leak hasn’t come back as far as I can tell but there will be another stretch of non-use for this bike as I travel and ride meat bikes. We will see when I return.

Roval Traverse SL II Wheels

The Roval Traverse SL II Hydra 2 wheels are fantastic options from Specialized. I don’t know if you noticed but most rims are no longer concave externally. Many companies are tuning compliance and feel with convex and stepped construction that was somewhat pioneered by the Zipp Moto back in 2019. While those single-wall rims were too flexible for any hard riding, the concept is sound and the lightweight Traverse SL II suits the spritely character of the Levo R well. They haven’t needed any trueing after all the rides and the freehub has survived all the abuse I could dish out. These wheels are 2600 CAD if you buy them aftermarket and would be great on a lightweight trail bike all day long.

Specialized Purgatory Tires

The Purgatory T7 (rear) and T9 (front) Grid casing tires were neither great nor horrible for the duration of my testing. They roll fast and are quite predictable on hardpack trails. They lean over nicely and hold a line as long as you reach the sideknobs with enough lean angle. If you are half-assed with your cornering, I found them to drift more than I would have liked. Sometimes scary, always fun. In steep loose terrain, they did very little to keep me in line. I had some scary moments dropping into uncharted territory. If you want some more piloting power, use butchers or cannibals on this bike. I must have burped the tires on some Tzouhalem berms; they stopped holding air after 12 days of riding. I topped up the sealant and they are good to go once again. Roval wheels use a proprietary valve that threads into the rim from the inside. This is pretty smart as it eliminates a weak spot for the sealant to seep out of.

Cockpit

The Roval handlebars have been fine. Actually they’re part of a one-piece Roval Control SL RISE Integrated cockpit, with a 50mm virtual integrated stem, 8-degrees of backsweep, 2-degrees of upsweep, and 780mm wide. They are comfortable and do not ride harshly. I can not easily attach my Outbound Lighting Evo to them, and this bothers me a little. There is also no captive nut to bolt on a mount. The grips were quite awful, so I swapped them out for a pair of Peaty’s Monarch Pro in the thick version. Huge improvement on the comfort and fatigue fronts for me. I have the Peaty’s grips on a few bikes in different flavours and hope to write about them soon. Spoiler: they are good.

The Power Mirror Pro is a 450 CAD, 3D-printed saddle that is extremely comfortable. On a couple of wet rides, I was worried it would fill up with mud and grit, and it did, but with a different effect. Instead of grinding the dirt into a paste between my ass and the saddle, it ejected it through the printed polymers. My ass was cleaner as a result of being less in contact with dirt, and the saddle was easily washed with a simple hose down. The Mirror Pro is a comfortable place to pedal from, even after 10 days of heavy camera pack hauling. I did not use padded shorts once. Big praise.

SRAM Transmission

SRAM’s XX1 Transmission has been excellent, shifting under heavy duress and hasn’t skipped a beat. It is fancy, it is expensive and while I don’t care to have one on my pedal bikes, the T-Type ecosystem just works on high-power eMTB bikes. There is no drama, just pleasant shifts while pedaling up vertical walls. The derailleur is wired into the Levo’s battery, so no charging to worry about.

RockShox Reverb AXS Dropper

The 150mm Reverb AXS dropper is a little on the short side. There is room for a longer post. 175mm would have been appreciated with the playful character of this bike. It wants to jump and carve and really have the seat out of the way as much as possible. Functionally, it works just fine. It’s quick, and I charged the battery once since taking temporary ownership of the bike.

Fox Float Factory GENIE Rear Shock

The Genie shock works really well on the back of the Levo R.

I settled at 195psi and XXXX

I often find the O-ring blown off the shock body, indicating a bottom-out event. But no real concerning feedback gets through my legs. The overall compliance of the rims and the rear end manages the travel well. The progressive nature of the Genie works as advertised. It is a high-volume shock early in the travel and a low-volume shock for the last 20%. There is plenty of traction and support for the Levo R.

Fox 36SL 140mm Fork

The Fox 36SL is less of a success story. It’s not because it is not a good fork. I have the same fork on my Scor 2030 and it works really well. What it lacks on the heavy Levo R is the mid-stroke support. It blows through its travel quickly and jeopardizes the Levo R’s trail manners. I set it to 100psi, which is way above what’s recommended for me, even with a camera pack. It doesn’t feel harsh and still can use a little more end stroke support. I will add more volume spacers if the bike ends up staying with me longer.

As icing on an already rich cake, Specialized just released the Levo X, a bike designed to carry an impressive amount of cargo front and rear racks that attach to the fork crown and rear suspension linkage. The idea of adding functional racks to full suspension bikes is not new but has only recently been gaining some technical aptitude. The Tailfin rack system seems to be popular, along with some Aeroe products. I have not used either of them but know of many happy customers touring and shredding along the way. While the Levo X is an expensive bike that doesn’t make a ton of sense, the racks themselves can be purchased on their own for about 500 CAD. You can then attach them to an alloy Levo 4 Comp and build yourself a sweet trail building, *slackpacker rig.

*Slackpacking was coined by Uncle Dave, and refers to riding short distances into the woods and camping for fun or content.

The shorter travel Levo R has its place when the trails are mellower, and expectations are in line with the bike’s intentions. On Vancouver Island, the Levo R was happy on just about every trail except for one short section in Parksville. On Seymour, it is happy with inbounds riding on tighter trails where agility is required. In Bellingham, it would be happy doing laps on Galbraith all day long. Are you on a road trip across the US and want to bring a bike that has incredible power delivery and battery capacity? The Levo R makes perfect sense. I would opt for a lower-end model with better pricing myself. But the Levo 4 with a little more suspension travel and forgiveness makes a heck of a lot more sense than the Levo R in my neck of the woods. If you want to ride everything, all the time, the Levo 4 EVO seems like the logical choice.

Specialized Levo Family