Specialized Turbo Vado 4.0 SL EQ

 I got my first e-bike at the end of August in 2020. It was a gift from my kids. Overall it's a really great bike for people who still want to pedal and get some cardio exercise. It's pedal assist so you still have to do some work.

There were a couple of things I wanted to have just a little different. The bike is sort of a European, city commuter and that's not really my use case. 

First off, I thought that I might not use the rear bike rack for my rides. I tend to take just a small backpack and travel as light as possible.

I took off the rack and noticed that I could cut about a foot off the rear fender and rotate it forward using the existing holes in the fender that were there for the rack. Kept the mud flap and made it a little more mountain bike style.

 

 Cut about a foot off the fender and re-attached.

Then I had to re-wire the tail light back on...

I bought a sort of inexpensive suspension seat post...

The final thing was a bit tricky and required some electrical technician skills. I read that it's a law in some places in Europe to have your headlight always on. I didn't want mine on all the time during the day. Thought I could save a little power. I'm sort of surprised actually that an expensive German bike light had no off switch and also no connector to change the light if you wanted something different. I was able to open up the light and dremal out a little place for a sealed slide switch that I epoxied into place. I was also able to add an in-line sealed connector to work on the light and/or replace it.

That's about it! I weighed the bike and it came in at 37Lbs. really light for an e-bike.

All the standard info. on the bike can be seen on Specialized website  There are also some pretty good videos on Youtube about it.

e-mail me at killak13@gmail.com if you want details on the parts used or process.