Exploring outdoors with the Specialized Turbo Tero 3.0 E-Bike

Specialized Turbo Tero 3.0 E-Bike Review | Best electric mountain bike for more relaxed trails, commuting and bikepacking

Is it time for a new ride that can tackle all the 2022 adventures you have planned? Enter Specialized’s Turbo Tero 3.0 E-Bike.

I’ll be honest – I wasn’t sure if electric bikes were my thing before this beauty arrived at my house in sizable cardboard box. I love my road bike and have aspirations to own a mountain bike, but I definitely thought E-Bikes were better suited for holiday pedalling, or pootling around town on. Turns out, they’re not – and I may have found my new favourite quiver-of-one bike. My trusty Specialized Turbo Tero 3.0 E-Bike comes with me around town, onto my local trails and I’m now planning my first bike packing two-day trip with it – it’s a proper workhorse.

Specialized Turbo Tero 3.0 E-Bike Review | Best electric mountain bike for more relaxed trails, commuting and bikepacking

Turbo-charged trails

Straight out of the (massive) box, there was a lot to like about Specialized’s Turbo Tero – I’m a fan of the rugged off-road wheels, the comfortable frame and the ease with which I can switch between modes on the go (swap between Eco, Trail and Turbo, the latter ideal when you’re faced with a particularly horrible-looking hill, and you can add your own customized presets too).

You can tell Specialized know their mountain bikes – the Turbo Tero handles like a dream and the wide, tough tyres are smooth over rocky ground and have good traction on slick mud, giving a sometimes-wobbly mountain biker like me an added level of confidence. If you’re an experienced MTB fan tackling singletrack, you’ll need something more trail-focused, but for exploring further off-piste without worrying about the conditions you might encounter, the Turbo is ideal.

Gal about town

When I’m home in the city I cycle daily to meetings and on errands. I usually take my road bike out, but I found nipping in and out of traffic on the solid and dependable Turbo Tero much more stable and enjoyable, without compromising on speed. This bike was clearly built to be a bit of a work horse, too – you can easily add a rack or a child seat, and the Turbo has also been designed to pull a trailer with ease, saving you energy if you have to do a spot of hauling of kit (or cargo or kids!).

Fair warning – like many E-Bikes, this monster is heavy at around 21kg, and when the battery is turned off it’s a bit of a faff to cart about. I still think it’s well worth the weight, and much more, for the convenience of getting around the city and the adventures it’s opened up for me by allowing me to get further, faster on trails and gravel roads. I’ll definitely be adding a kickstand, though!

I’m not the best at remembering to charge my tech, but the Turbo Tero 3.0 needs less juice than I was expecting – I can go a week of shorter rides without needing to charge up the battery, and it’ll also do two whole days of riding in a row, which is great for camping expeditions when I’m far from the nearest plug socket. I can always see how much battery I have left, and when it does need a charge, the whole process takes around five hours. Even for a tech-phobe like me, it’s all pretty straightforward to master.

Wherever you roam

If you’re thinking of investing in your first electric bike and need a beast that can tackle both the daily commute and weekends of off-road adventure, this is a well-balanced choice that can go from tarmac to trail without a fuss. Specialized describe their Turbo Tero 3.0 as “an electric mountain bike equipped for everyday rides; a mountain bike that you can commute on; a commuter you can take touring; a touring bike that you can haul freight with.” It turns out that’s right up my street (or should that be trail?) – my E-Bike-critic days are over.

Find out more about the Turbo Tero 3.0 E-Bike from Specialized

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