A motorcycle that started its existence in highway type, the Creo SL couldn’t have strayed farther from that path. This newest iteration is massive, it is burly, and it seems able to tackle absolutely anything this aspect of a World Cup downhill course.
Entrance suspension? Verify. (It is there within the head tube). Dropper submit? Verify. Tyres that would not look misplaced on a hardtail? Additionally, test.
However this, the Creo SL Professional Carbon (let’s name it by its full identify at the very least as soon as) does not look unwieldy – or in in the least gradual. It is compact and muscular and properly dressed, with geometry that makes it look as if it’d do fairly properly in a gravel race (although it is an ebike, so it nearly definitely would).
Launched in direction of the tip of final yr, the Creo SL is an improve from its predecessor in a large number of the way. Maybe most clearly, it has an improved motor with extra energy and torque. On prime of that, the body has been redesigned to take a lot greater tyres.
Let us take a look at the bike in a bit extra element.
(Picture credit score: Future / Richard Butcher)
The body intimately
It is completed in ‘Gloss Black Pearl Birch Black Pearl Speckle’. The precious seconds misplaced off your existence telling your buddy the color are repaid to some extent by the very fact you’ll be able to get pleasure from a pale paintjob with out it being spoiled by the primary flecks of filth.
That is very a lot a gravel body, even taking the massive tyres out of the equation. The clearances are enormous. Sufficient, in reality, to take 2.2in (57mm) tyres, not that Spesh goes so far as that with the usual 47mm choices.
Low rider-style fork mounts are in place for bikepacking overnighters, and dropout eyelets for rear racks are additionally current. There are additionally mounts for a seat keep bridge. A prime tube bag just isn’t an possibility although – it might obscure and certain injury the digital show, and the rubber Future Shock suspension boot would not prefer it both.
At which level, let’s discuss that Future Shock. The one right here is probably the most premium of the three Future Shock designs, and options six ranges of adjustment accessed by a dial on prime of the stem.
When it comes to geometry, this newer model of the Creo incorporates a barely slacker body than its predecessor, making it a extra succesful gravel-tamer. The wheelbase has gone out from 1,020mm to 1,059, whereas the pinnacle angle is decreased by a degree-and-a-half to 71°. Stack and attain are 607mm and 392mm respectively, making for what feels to me like a impartial place properly suited to the duty at hand.
(Picture credit score: Future / Richard Butcher)
Parts & Wheels
It is no shock on such a clear-cut gravel bike to discover a single chainring (44t) up entrance, and that is paired with a 12-speed cassette, with 11-50 tooth to select from. The entire drivetrain is SRAM eTap AXS, with Rival on the levers and calipers and Eagle chainring and rear mech. The brakes are hydraulic discs, in fact.
Wheels are constructed with Roval Terra C carbon rims that characteristic a 25mm inner width, with DT Swiss hubs and spokes. Notably, this newer model of the Creo eschews the Increase hub spacing commonplace utilized by the earlier incarnation, making it appropriate with an excellent deal extra wheels than earlier than.
The 47mm tyres are Specialised’s personal Tracer Professional. They’re summer season tyres, actually; three-season at a push.
Ending package is in-house too, with a short-nosed Physique Geometry Energy Professional Saddle and 42cm Hover handlebars with a slight rise. The Trans-X dropper seatpost completes the image, providing 50mm of journey.
(Picture credit score: Future / Richard Butcher)
The Motor
Specialised SL 1.2 motor is one other improve for this latest model of the Creo, with the earlier bike utilizing the SL 1.1.
The brand new merchandise provides 320 watts of energy driving 50nM of torque – significantly greater than the earlier unit’s 240 watts and 35nM. In flip the motor is powered by a 320Wh battery hidden in that chunky down tube. This may be supplemented by a proprietary exterior Vary Extender battery (£295) that matches within the bottle cage within the footage and provides half as a lot battery life once more.
The bumf for the bike quotes a variety of as much as 5 hours, nevertheless it varies, in fact. Inputting my very important stats into Specialised’s vary finder gave me a 90km (54-mile) vary for a hilly journey in Eco mode. But when I dropped 20 kilos I would get one other 20km. It is a useful gizmo.
Q-factor is now 169mm – lower than the earlier Creo but in addition 18mm extra, for instance, than Shimano’s GRX crankset.
The highest tube show (or Mastermind Turbo Join Unit to provide it its full identify) provides all the important thing information you are after – battery well being, mode, pace and extra – and it may be tailor-made just about precisely as you need by pairing it with the Specialised app. This alsos allows you to report your rides and dial within the help you need from the motor.
Paired to all of this can be a pair of blip buttons on the rear of the handlebar, which permit the rider to cycle via energy modes extra simply than with the one button on the TCU, and with out taking a hand off the bars.
(Picture credit score: Future / Richard Butcher)
The Journey
Even in Eco mode, the help kicks in quickly from the off. Out on a flat highway with no wind, you will must get previous the authorized 25kph (15.5mph) pace restrict for help earlier than feeling such as you’re doing a lot in the best way of labor – the Creo simply makes it that straightforward.
In fact, getting as much as that pace is a doddle with the ability help, which feathers away nearly unnoticed if you hit the restrict, quite than reducing out abruptly and leaving the rider immediately feeling like half the bicycle owner they had been a second earlier than.
On the woodland paths that principally move for gravel in my a part of the world, the Creo SL makes driving an absolute pleasure. The uphill drags with gradual, troublesome surfaces that imply minutes of disagreeable toil on an ordinary machine are made gentle work of, with the 47mm Tracer Professional tyres taking part in a big half right here. Mixed with the motor, and the Future Shock, they make selecting a line a lot simpler. Virtually any line, in reality, turns into open to you.
Steeper hills – often my bête noir as a rider properly into 90-something kilos – discovered me calling on the Sport mode at instances, even when Eco nonetheless made a helpful distinction.
Like all the things else, steep hills are finest taken seated on this bike, on condition that (on any bike) there is a pronounced useless spot on the backside of every pedal rev which does not make for the smoothest energy supply when you carry a power-matching motor into play.
Sport mode was an absolute hoot, providing all the ability I wanted and extra. Off-road turned enjoyable, enjoyable, enjoyable, and all these toils again up to the mark after tackling a tough part had been changed with an exhilaratingly fast return to smile central.
Nevertheless, I did not discover the best help mode – Turbo – significantly helpful. It made a small distinction on the steepest hills, however there’s a a lot greater soar from Eco to Sport than from Sport to Turbo. These jumps will be tuned by the rider, however I actually did really feel as if Sport gave me all of the increase I wanted.
The Future Shock was unintrusive. However I’ve used it sufficient to want I had one on all my highway and gravel bikes. The tuneablity of the three.3 model fitted to the Creo SL is a pleasant contact however I discovered I stored it resolutely on the softest setting.
Lastly, the SRAM eTap was nearly faultless. The altering was fast and clean – not fairly as clean as on the Roubaix SL8 I rode lately, however fuss-free all the identical. The brakes, unsurprisingly, threw up no complaints both.
Maybe the one misfire are the handlebars. They’d positively profit from a flare – even only a small one – for added management and ease of driving within the drops. However given I would prefer to see flared bars on endurance highway bikes too, I in all probability would say that.
Worth
At £7,500 / $9,000 this isn’t a small-change bike by any means (are any of them as of late?); in reality it is getting in direction of the highest finish with regards to gravel ebikes. However the quantity of know-how and expertise that has gone into this bike feels as if it justifies that price ticket.
Clearly, all of the know-how and the tech on the planet would not depend for a lot if it did not finally produce a top quality and eminently succesful machine, however the Creo SL is no doubt each of these issues.
When it comes to rivals, you might take a look at the Cannondale Synapse Neo Allroad 1 for £6,000, which incorporates a 600w motor with 55nM of torque, or maybe the Canyon Grizl:ON CF 9 (£6,699), that includes an 55nM Bosch motor with 400Wh battery.
The Spec
Body: FACT 11r carbon, entrance/rear thru-axles, totally built-in down tube battery
Fork: Future Shock 3.3
Motor: Specialised SL 1.2, 250 watts / 50nM torque with 320Wh battery
Shifters: SRAM Rival eTAP AXS, hydraulic disc
Rear mech: SRAM GX Eagle
Brake calipers: SRAM Rival eTAP AXS, hydraulic disc
Wheels: Roval Terra C, 25mm inner width carbon rim, 32mm depth, DT 370 hub
Tyres: Specialised Tracer Professional, 47mm
Saddle: Physique Geometry Energy Professional
Handlebars: Specialised Journey Gear Hover
Stem: Future Stem Professional
Seatpost: Trans-X Dropper, 50mm Journey
Weight: 14.1kg (56cm)
