Review: Specialized Turbo Kenevo Expert - An Electrified Freeride Machine

The Turbo Kenevo Expert is equipped with a dual crown fork, the RockShox Boxxer Select RC, RockShox Super Deluxe Coil Select + rear shock, SRAM 11-speed GX derailleur with S700 single-click shifter, 700Wh battery and comes with a price tag of $8,225 USD (€6,899). For those looking for more versatility, the Elite is a single crown version with Marzocchi Z1 fork and Bomber CR rear shock, featuring a smaller 500Wh battery and similar parts spec for $5,525 USD (€5,499).

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Construction and Features / Motor Details

Like its predecessor, the Turbo Kenevo is only available in an aluminum version. The new frame is 2.2 pounds lighter than before, a weight reduction that was accomplished in large part by removing the carrier that was necessary to hold the old motor in place. The latest Specialized 2.1 motor saves another 400 g in weight and 15% in size over the 1.3 model.

With the addition of a sidearm on the righthand side of the shock, the distance of the shock mounts remains constant under all loads and generally adds stiffness to the frame, enhancing its tracking ability. Plus, locating the rocker link directly on the sides of the seat tube further adds stiffness to the package. A nice side effect of the frame's new sidearm is the ability to route all cables through it and the top tube, allowing for a reduction of the down tube circumference, giving the frame a sleeker silhouette. Cables are held in place by clamps on the inside of the sidearm.

An insert at the motor cover has been added to keep dirt out, and an extra plastic cover between the chainstays and main frame also makes sure that no debris can damage the moving parts and enter the motor cover from that direction.

Yes, there’s room for a water bottle in the main triangle. It comes close to the piggyback reservoir of the rear shock, but fits nonetheless. Because of the battery being housed inside the down tube, there is no room for a SWAT box in the frame, but a multi-tool underneath the bottle cage and an extra tool underneath the steerer top cap cover the basics.

Specialized recommends a maximum rear tire size of 27.5 x 2.8”, but the Kenevo would be capable of fitting up to 3” wide tires, if you’re willing to accept less clearance between tire and frame.




Specialized is using the hardware components of the magnesium-housed Brose Drive S Mag motor, which they incidentally have developed in close partnership with the manufacturer. The electronics, motherboard, and software were been engineered by Specialized at their Turbo Innovation Center in Switzerland. As a whole, Specialized dubs it the Specialized 2.1 Rx Trail-tuned motor. It amplifies rider input up to 410 percent at 250 watts nominal power (up to 560 watts peak power) and 90Nm of torque.

Apart from the Specialized 700Wh M2-series custom battery that the Kenevo Expert comes with, a 500Wh battery is also available. Both use the same amount of cells, but different types, with the larger battery extending your bike’s range by about 40%. The 700Wh battery uses the 21700 type, weighing in a 3,840g, and the 500Wh model uses 18650 cells and is said to weigh 750 grams less. It’s possible to swap between both batteries.

Fully charging the 700Wh battery takes about six hours. The built-in Battery Management System (BMS) regulates battery health and protects it from overcharging (or under voltage). The battery can be removed from the bike by loosening a large Allen bolt at the downside of the top tube and pulling the battery out of the down tube at the bottom bracket area. The charging port sits directly at the downside of the battery, close to the bottom bracket and can be accessed while remaining in the bike by removing the magnetic connector cable that forms the link to the motor. The battery itself is also equipped with an expander leaf spring at the top to keep it from rattling inside the frame. An integrated rock guard at the bottom area also features a recess, acting as a small handle, to make it easier to carry the battery around when pulled out of the bike.


Integrated into the upper side of the top tube is the so-called Turbo Connect Unit (TCU) - basically the brain of the bike - which gives you information about the motor-assist level being used via three circular LEDs, as well as showing the remaining battery level in ten-percent steps. It also acts as the on/off switch for the bike. It can interact with other devices via Bluetooth or ANT+. Also, it can be removed rather easily to give access to a diagnostics port, allowing shops to read out various information with specific Specialized software. The Bluetooth connection code that’s needed to connect the bike to Mission Control is also printed on the unit, in case you don’t have your booklet with all serial numbers present.

Those asking for more info than what the Turbo Connect Unit can provide can get a Turbo Connect Display (TCD) handlebar display aftermarket for $90 USD (€89). It can link to the bike to give you basic information like speed, distance or time, but also enhanced info like power input from the rider or battery level in percent. It comes with two display mounts with different lengths for your preferred placement, sharing the same connection as Garmin devices.

A small handlebar remote can be located next to the grip, offering plus and minus labeled buttons to cycle through the modes as well as a walk assist button at the bottom. An extra button with the Specialized S symbol on the opposite side activates Turbo mode from whatever mode you're in - possibly coming in handy in a situation where you need it quickly.



Mission Control App

The Mission Control app is a crucial part to customizing your ride and is available for iOS and Android devices. You don’t really need to activate it for the bike to work fine, as the stock setup will make most people happy. But if you like to tinker, this is the tool to have.

Apart from diagnostics information, the app gives you the opportunity to alter Support and Peak Power for Eco, Trail and Turbo modes separately, as well as adjusting Acceleration Response and Shuttle settings spanning all modes. The default setting for Eco mode is 35% for Support and 35% for Peak Power, Trail at 35%/100% and Turbo at 100%/100%, with Acceleration Response set at 40% and Shuttle sitting at 0%. You can save different custom presets that you can activate at a push of a button.

Support equals the multiplier of rider power added by the motor. Peak Power is the maximum electrical power available to supply the motor. Acceleration Response adjusts if the motor responds quicker or slower to rider input. The lower the level, the smoother the power transfer to the rear wheel and less strain on shifting. The Shuttle feature gives you maximum power output with less required pedaling force. The higher the setting for Shuttle mode is, the easier it is to get full motor power in your selected mode. The default settings for Shuttle is zero, and it requires a bit more battery power the higher it is set.

Apart from all that, the Mission Control app actually features a mapping system that can record all of your rides and upload them to Strava afterward. With Smart Control, a feature implemented not too long ago, you can set a duration and/or distance you’d like to ride and your Turbo Kenevo will automatically regulate the power output for you through a smart algorithm that’s seamlessly operating at all times.

Geometry & Sizing

Specialized has adopted its new sizing system ranging from S2 to S5, rather than S to XL. The 2020 Kenevo has also grown in length considerably (almost two sizes up from the old Kenevo), featuring a reach of 445mm for its smallest size and going up all the way to 520mm for the largest version. Naturally, the wheelbase has gone up in length also, with the chainstays sitting at 454mm.

With shorter seat tube lengths on all sizes and a steeper seat angle, which now sits at 77 degrees, even smaller riders now have the option to choose their ride rather by reach preference and not only by what their inseam dictates them to fit on. At the same time, the steeper seat angle also shortens the effective top tube length considerably, so make sure to grab a frame size that not only feels right in terms of reach, but effective top tube length also, in combination with a stem length that balances your sitting position to where you feel most comfortable.

The head angle comes in at 64-degrees. By turning a stainless steel flip-chip insert at the lower shock mount, all angles can be steepened by 0.5 degrees, also lifting the bottom bracket height by 6 to 8mm. A fork with regular 42mm offset is used. A custom chainguide is mounted to one of the bolts holding the motor. It can be flipped up to get quick access to the chain.

Size S2 comes with a 130mm dropper post, and S3 to S5 have posts with 160mm of drop. The seat tube diameter is 34.9mm, a dimension that's becoming increasingly common.

Suspension Design


It wouldn’t be a Specialized without an FSR link at the dropout, decoupling braking forces from the suspension movement and altering the axle path of the rear end. While the Kenevo can’t share a similar linkage configuration as the new Demo or Enduro because of the engine taking up too much space, Specialized revised its kinematics for more bottom-out resistance and capability in the rough. Its leverage ratio is slightly more progressive than the old Kenevo, with bottom-out control sitting between the old Kenevo and new Enduro.

The rear wheel axle path now moves in a slightly more rearward-angled trajectory to enhance its rollover capabilities and not hang up on square-edged bumps as easily. The 2020 Kenevo uses a metric 230 x 62.5mm shock length, resulting in an average leverage ratio of 2.88:1.

Test Bike Setup


When picking a longer size frame, I usually ride with a stem as short as possible, between 30 to 35mm in length. With a dual crown fork, that length is limited to a minimum of 45mm, otherwise the bar touches the extensions of the fork’s uppers. Due to the added height of the dual crown setup I ended up mounting a downhill flat bar to lower the front by about 15mm. It might not sound like much, but it made a difference, and allowed me to put more pressure on the front wheel and get into the riding position that I was looking for.

I was mostly riding the bike on natural technical rooty trails around Vienna, Austria, with some decent drops, jumps and steep chutes thrown in for good measure. I also gave my brother - who's basically a carbon copy of myself - time on the bike for some added feedback. A trip to the small bike park in Kalnica, Slovakia, with some bigger-sized jumps and drops, acted as proving ground for its big-hit capabilities.

Climbing

Having a dual crown fork up front on a bike that can climb is somewhat of a polarizing feature. In terms of perception, seeing a dual crown fork on mellow trails is simply overkill. The Expert caters to the rider that lives in an area without chairlifts and would usually have to rely on a shuttle rig to get to some gnarly downhills, although technically the Kenevo could also make having to pay for a chairlift obsolete. That being said, once you hop on the Kenevo, it’s actually easy to forget that you’re running a massive fork up front. With the RockShox Boxxer Select RC lowered to 180 mm of travel, rather than the 200 mm it usually comes with, its ride height equals that of a single crown model with equal travel.

The RockShox Super Deluxe Coil Select + features a lever at the reservoir to activate a fully open or threshold position. While the threshold setting isn’t a full lockout, it comes pretty close, stiffening up the rear end drastically. To be honest, except for trying it once on a fire road climb, I never used it at all. Overall, the extra travel of the bike doesn’t seem to affect it in a negative way, even on most climbs. Maybe in technical situations where you have to finesse up a rock slab does the bike push more into the travel, but with motorized support, pedaling efficiency based on travel plays a tangential role. I for one just enjoy the bump-eating capability on smooth or rough climbs alike, without the bike wallowing with each pedal stroke thanks to its suspension design.

The steep 77-degree seat angle does the trick in terms of pedaling efficiency, and if you think it doesn’t matter on an e-bike, think again. Especially on long days in the saddle, something that the 700Wh battery is able to provide you with, getting situated on the bike comfortably is important. Thanks to the powerful motor, running a gearing of 32-42 as the highest gear really isn’t an issue. Only in stupid steep technical riding sections did I sometimes wonder if a higher ratio would have made the difference of making it up or not if I failed. And if I did, it wasn’t because of the bike’s geometry, the front end is solidly sticking to the ground when it gets steeper.


Motor & Battery Performance

Power is nothing without control, and Specialized has mastered the art of squeezing the best possible performance out of the motor hardware. In their stock setup, each mode and power transfer from the motor interacts with your pedaling input smoothly and provides a natural pedaling feeling. Translating energy to the wheels becomes second nature and is highly controllable, even at very low speed. There are no awkward lags or surges in power. It’s even rather easy to get moving from a standstill on a steep climb. Engagement and cut-out of the motor support feels seamless and is really hard to notice. It’s great how quietly the motor performs in each setting. Its low hum allows you to sneak up on other riders and is unobtrusive in a larger riding group, compared to some competitors that give you away from afar. In combination with the sleek appearance of the frame, the bike could easily be mistaken for a regular ride not just from a distance, but even at first glance from closer up.

I ended up riding in Turbo mode (without Shuttle) for longer periods of time more often than usual, thanks to the big tank of the 700Wh battery and (in this case) luckily not weighing too much myself. From what I’ve seen in the past, a rider with a weight of 165 to 176 lb usually requires 20 to 25% more battery power than myself under the same riding conditions. By just riding in Turbo mode all the time I was able to ride for 5,900 to 6,550 feet of altitude on a single charge, depending on the terrain. Mixing it up with Trail and Eco of course took me beyond that, but concluding how far you can really get is dependent on so many different factors, that you’ll have to discover the limits of the Kenevo in your preferred riding area on your own. A helpful alternative is checking out the new Turbo Range Calculator on their website that gives you a pretty good idea of how far you can get. According to their calculation, a 5'11'' rider weighing 165 lb should get up to 6,380 feet of elevation and a distance of 22 miles at an average speed of 12 mph in mountainous terrain, riding in Trail mode.

Let’s just say that the Kenevo’s reach with 700Wh battery is ample, and that I never want to go back to more limiting setups. I am one of those riders that doesn’t think that carrying an extra 500Wh battery in your backpack on long days is a great option. And with Mission Control’s Smart Control feature, once you set pointers like distance or time, the app regulates your choice of support mode on its own, constantly recalculating different factors of the terrain ridden and battery used to get you safely to your goal. Neat. When only 20% of battery is left in the tank, the bike does not activate the Turbo setting anymore, trying to extend the range. While this is a nice feature for people perhaps not paying attention on their ride, it does force a lower setting onto you, even if you have a ride perfectly planned out. It would be nice to make this feature optional in Mission Control.

Descending

Coming back to the 2020 Kenevo’s geometry, it’s a real winner in my book. If you like to ride fast, feel safe, and not get the feeling that your bike is the limiting factor on your downhill run, then it’s hard to return to shorter bikes once you’ve committed to the longer setups. And, contrary to some belief, smaller riders can benefit from this geometry as well. With steeper seat angles, shortening the effective top tube length dramatically, I am now able to ride bikes that are two sizes up from what I was used to. Or, to make a far-fetched comparison to the car industry, I am now able to ride a Porsche, and not just a Mini John Cooper Works. Not that the Mini isn’t a hell of a lot of fun to slide around the corners and get out of control in, but it’s still never going to beat the longer wheelbase of a Porsche in terms of stability and control at speed.

Add to that a slack 64-degree head angle and a really low bottom bracket - my measuring tape says it’s 335mm, rather than 345mm from the chart - and the new Kenevo is just asking to slay loose corners, rooty off-camber sections and washed out berms. That is, after having lowered the handlebar somewhat in my case. I did hit my pedals a bit more often than I’m used to - mostly because I was pedaling in sections with motor assist where I usually wouldn't or couldn't - but I wouldn’t want to give up the planted cornering feeling a low center of gravity provides.

In that regard, surprisingly, the Kenevo doesn’t feel like a tanker when cornering at all. Nimble and playful might not be the best words to describe it, but it’s rather quick and responsive at translating input from the rider. The smaller 27.5” wheels even make it pretty easy to flick the rear end hard into corners and allow more clearance between your body and rear tire down steep chutes. Personally, I feel that the chainstays with a length of 454mm are a great match for a reach between 450 to 470mm (obviously, I cannot speak for larger frame sizes), giving a bike a balanced feel sitting nicely centered and allowing you to put even pressure on the front and rear end alike, aiding your traction in every thinkable scenario.

When it comes to acceleration, the overall weight of the bike becomes noticeable when pushing past the 20mph (or 25km/h in Europe) of motor support down the hill or in the flats. Especially when trying to pick up speed before bigger jumps, it becomes apparent that you have to put in an effort. On the other hand, with the gearing of 32 to 11 as the lowest possible combination, you run out of steam rather soon. This is where a setup with twelve gears and a wider spread would be noticeably superior, but it’s not the end of the world and most likely not a deciding factor to affect your overall impression much. Back to weight, it’s interesting to note that even at about 24kg with pedals, the Kenevo doesn’t have a huge tendency to push into corners. Somehow, the people at Specialized have found a way to create an overall balance that heavily aids the overall handling of the bike. I have ridden a lot of bikes in this weight class that feel inherently different when it comes to steep chutes or braking hard into tight turns. Of course, the Kenevo is harder to stop than some lighter e-bikes out there, but it does so in a controlled manner.

One of the biggest ‘challenges’ I found I had to deal with is that the 2020 Kenevo kept asking for higher speeds, always staying composed with its dialed geometry and soaking up your regular obstacles with ease - probably the extra rearward axle path trajectory aiding the suspension - shooting me into corners or trail exits with a bit too much enthusiasm, sometimes to the point of exiting a trail with a silly laugh and asking myself how I was able to ride that one out without crashing.


When comparing the leverage curve of the new Enduro to that of the new Kenevo, unfortunately the last part of the travel still takes a dip in progression. That’s exactly the part where you would ask for support from the suspension to not bottom out harshly when encountering a hard hit. The leverage curve looks better than that of the last iteration of the Kenevo, but in the end, if the 2020 Kenevo with RockShox coil shock is setup with a sag of 35 percent, it’s rather easy to bottom out the rear end at every medium-sized drop and harder compression. Only with a spring that lets the bike sit at about 25 percent sag does the Kenevo feel that there’s hardly anything beyond the capability of the rear end's shock absorption capabilities. Unfortunately, running this setup diminishes the small-bump-compliance noticeably. Sure, the bike does pop better this way, but if you’re into the sure-planted sofa-like suspension feel over small and medium-sized hits, you may end up bottoming out a little too often.

I think that an air shock with added tokens for high progression could turn the rear end into a dream ride for riders that like a sensitive beginning of the travel, with ample support through its mid-stroke and high ramp-up at the end for bottom-out control at the end. I haven’t had a chance to test a progressive coil spring yet, but it might offer a cheaper solution to add progression to the rear end, rather than switching to an air shock at a cost.

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Technical Report

The weight Specialized could save with the new frame they equalized by deciding to equip the Kenevo with sturdier components than its predecessor. Specialized components are known to offer great quality, so there’s nothing to complain about in terms of longevity. A SRAM 11-speed setup works fine, but I do miss the broader range of modern 12-speed cassettes a bit, e-bike or not.

Drop it like it's hot: Gone is the angled saddle in a dropped position - the newer Specialized Command Post IRcc features 16 micro-adjustable positions that are noticeable while actuating the post's drop. It's something to get used to, but the Command Post's function is solid, with a defined locking mechanism and smooth actuation. Plus, they are rather short in total length, so even smaller riders can enjoy some extra drop.

Wheelset: I’m not overly excited about the Roval 27.5” Alloy DH’s 28mm internal width in combination with the 2.6” wide tires. Personally, I feel that rims with an inner width of 32 to 34mm provide wider tires with more side hold stability, reducing tire roll. The wheels are on the heavy side, adding to the overall weight, but can also take a beating. I dinged the rim a bunch of times on rock slabs without any visible damage.

Tires: The Butcher’s rather stiff BLCK DMND casing adds sidewall support next to its puncture-resistance, even on the somewhat narrower rims. Although I haven’t been testing in rocky terrain, their Gripton compound seems to hold up well under e-bike loads and provides ample grip on various terrain from wet to dry conditions.

RockShox Boxxer Select RC: Even with the compression fully open I could not replicate the hand-soothing suppleness of Fox’s top-tier dampers - my hands felt a little more tired after a long run, but there’s never been a moment when I doubted the front end’s ability to stick to the ground or keep the front end under control. Throw at it what you will, the Charger RC damper does feel bottomless and composed, even when using almost all of the travel on bigger drops or hard landings. The fork might not feel as lively as some competitors, but I know a bunch of people that are looking for exactly that feel and praise RockShox fork setups.

Pinkbike's Take

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