The trail hardtails are stacking up here at ebiketips. Hot on the heels of the Mondraker e-Prime R+ we told you about earlier this week comes the £3,000 Specialized Turbo Levo Hardtail Comp 6Fattie, a stealthy beast indeed.
“The Turbo Levo Hardtail Comp 6Fattie has all of the speed and nimble handling that our hardtail trail bikes are known for—only with a sophisticated Turbo boost”, say Specialized. “Then comes the efficient and powerful Turbo technology, mating the battery and motor into the M5 frame in a new way”.

The Specialized approach to the whole e-MTB business is a bit different. Bosch is the motor system that predominates, and that generally means an external battery, a nice clear display and a high quality motor unit bolted on. Some manufacturers are beginning to work harder to integrate the Bosch system, with some (such as Moustache) hiding the battery in a redesigned down tube, and others (eg Cube) customising the motor housing to blend in with the frame.

The Specialized Turbo Levo bikes have had integration as a key point from the starting gun, though. So much so that at first glance you might miss the electics in this hardtail. The 460Wh battery is fully integrated into the bottom of the down tube (it can be removed, of course) and the motor built into the frame as seamlessly as possible. The motor in question is by Brose, but it’s a custom configuration for Specialized so it’s not quite the same as a stock motor. What is the same is the quiet operation, though, thanks to the belt drive internals.
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Also, there’s no display. You can check the battery charge, and change modes, using a button and LED display on the down tube, but the Turbo Levo is primarily designed to hook up with a smartphone app. Once you’ve paired your bike to your phone you gain access to the bike’s configuration, so you can adjust the assistance levels to suit your riding: if you’re planning a long ride you can knock the Eco settting right back, for example, to give you a bigger range.
That’s not all the app can do: in Smart Control mode you can set either how far you want to ride, or for how long, and the bike and app will take care of the battery management to get you back to the start with some juice left. Clever, eh?

Specialized call this bike a fattie but in reality it’s a 27.5+ bike; although the Specialized Ground Control and Purgatory three-inch tyres are on the edge of fat bike territory it’s still a standard frame and fork, albeit using the plus-friendly Boost axle standard that’s a bit wider for extra wheel stiffness. The Specialized M5 alloy frame is mated with a Rock Shox Reba RL fork. It’s a 120mm travel unit on our XL test bike; smaller sizes get 100mm of front-end travel.

Transmission-wise you get a 10-speed SRAM GX setup, with an 11-40T cassette for a wide range of ratios. SRAM also supply the DB5 disc brakes with beefy 200mm rotors. You get a TranzX dropper seatpost with remote for the gnarly bits and Specialized Body Geometry saddle and grips. Our XL review bike weighs in at 21.9kg. We’ll be putting it through its paces over the next few weeks, so watch out for a review soon.
