Specialised Breaks the Value Ceiling With $20,000 S-Works Turbo Levo 4 LTD

Set off Warning: The next article comprises descriptions of a motorcycle and its parts which are outrageously costly. In case you’re bothered by the already excessive and constantly rising costs within the bike trade, the brand new Specialised S-Works Turbo Levo 4 LTD could actually grind your gears.

For a very long time now, and particularly for the previous a number of years, Specialised’s top-tier S-Works bikes have commanded a number of the highest costs within the trade. The final couple variations of the S-Works Turbo Levo fashions launched with costs starting from $13,500 to $14,500. When the newest Turbo Levo 4 got here out earlier this 12 months, it retailed for a whopping $13,500, and has since gone as much as $14,000 as a result of rising costs and prices related to tariffs and different financial elements. 

Whereas already astronomically costly, it appears the $14,000-ish vary has been considerably of a worth ceiling that the majority main manufacturers haven’t been too keen to interrupt. Nicely, with the launch of the brand new $20,000 S-Works Turbo Levo 4 LTD, it will appear that Specialised has gone and blasted straight by way of it and raised that ceiling to a complete new stage. Impulsively, $14,000 doesn’t sound fairly so costly, proper?

Specialised S-Works Turbo Levo 4 LTD: What’s so LTD about it?

The LTD model of the S-Works Turbo Levo 4 takes the present, money-no-object S-Works mannequin and cranks it up with a handful of additional fancy parts. It’s constructed across the similar S-Works carbon body, however it comes with a particular — and crowd pleasing — Astral Blue paint job. Just like the common S-Works mannequin, it boasts the additional highly effective Specialised S-Works 3.1 motor placing out as much as 720W of peak energy and 110 Nm of torque. It additionally comes with the 840 Wh battery, and the 280 Wh vary extender seems to be included — thank goodness.

The LTD swaps out the high-performance Fox 38 Manufacturing unit for the uber-trick new Fox Podium inverted fork. The SRAM Maven Final brakes are traded out of a set of Trickstuff Maxima brakes with 223 mm rotors entrance and rear. Specialised additionally selected to modify the SRAM XX Eagle eMTB cranks out for a set of titanium Cane Creek Electrical Wings in the identical 160 mm size. Lastly, the LTD model rolls on Business 9 Hydra 2 hubs laced to the burly Roval Traverse HD rims, as an alternative of the DT Swiss 240 DEG hubs on the usual model. In any other case, so far as we are able to inform, the remainder of the construct is identical. 

Does spending $6,000 extra end in any weight financial savings? No it doesn’t. In truth, the claimed 52-pound and 14.6-ounce weight of the LTD is 11.3 ounces heavier than the common S-Works model within the S4 measurement.

Why Does it Price $6,000 Extra?

When wanting on the element upgrades on the Turbo Levo 4 LTD, we requested ourselves, does this add as much as a worth enhance of $6,000 over the already completely dialed and really costly $14,000 model? To search out out, we did a little bit math utilizing the retail costs of the upgraded parts and people on the usual, finances S-Works mannequin. Right here’s what we got here up with:

Fox Podium: $2,000 – Fox 38 Manufacturing unit: $1,249 = +$751 

Trickstuff Maxima Brake Set: $1,350 – SRAM Maven Final Brake Set: $600 = +$750

Trickstuff DH Rotors 223 mm: $92/every: $184 – SRAM HS2 200 mm/220 mm: $132 = +$52

Cane Creek Electrical Wings: $900 (on Cane Creek web site) – SRAM XX Eagle E-MTB Crank: $275 = $625

Business 9 Hydra 2 Hubset: $700 – DT Swiss 240 DEG hubset: $740 = -$40

“Complimentary” Vary Extender and Cable: +$700

Whole distinction: $2,838

Based mostly on this math, the flowery Astral Blue paint job on the Turbo Levo 4 LTD prices someplace within the neighborhood of $3,100. After all, the equation above doesn’t think about varied different price will increase associated to transport, manufacturing, supplies, tariffs, and so on., which have usually gone up throughout the board, however nonetheless…  

Heck, you possibly can purchase the Vary Extender, Podium fork, Trickstuff brakes and rotors, Cane Creek cranks, and Business 9 Hydra 2 hubs as new components, and that provides as much as $5,834. Then you possibly can swap them out at your leisure and have all the common S-Works parts as backups, or you possibly can promote them off to make a few of your a reimbursement. Or don’t purchase any of them in any respect, and take solace in the truth that the common S-Works Levo is already among the finest full-power eMTBs you should purchase.

Who Is Shopping for a $20,000 Bike?

In case you’re questioning who the heck would purchase $20,000 eMTB, effectively, so are we. On the similar time, we ask the identical factor about any $14,000+ bikes, and there’s no scarcity of these out within the wild. Based mostly on the variety of common S-Works Turbo Levo 4’s on the market, it’s protected to imagine that there’s a marketplace for the LTD, too. We doubt they’ll be flying out the doorways of motorbike outlets, however you realize there are just a few of us on the market who will choose certainly one of these up merely due to how costly it’s.

The S-Works Turbo Levo 4 LTD is offered now in sizes S2 by way of S6. You possibly can study extra about it or buy one for each member of your loved ones on the Specialised web site or at your native Specialised vendor.

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