I find the whole
Speed limit thing a joke tbh. I mean, could you imagine if car manufacturers started rounding off wheel nuts to stop people changing the wheels? Or if they rounded the engine mount bolts of incase someone decided to put a bigger engine in.
The fact that they sell the bikes compliant is all that matters. I may decided to put a 100cc engine in mine next (not that I would). Responsibility should end when it leaves the front door
I agree in principle but, as I find when running my company in Europe, the various laws don't allow this. It 'can' be argued that if someone sells something and they allow the user to fiddle around with the speed and they then have an accident on it that the manufacturer can end up being liable. Although none of us now think we'd ever do this it's surprising how people change their tune once they start looking at the reality of life after breaking their neck. Or more commonly the rider ends up in a vegetative state and the lawyer acting for the family or the estate sees an opportunity to blame the fact that they headbutted a tree flat out on Specialized for 'allowing' the rider to change the speed limit. It's not that simple, of course, but it happens.
You cannot believe what people have tried to sue me for over the years in the Ski Chalet business. One person ignored our advice to go outside in a big storm, walked past a sign forbidding pedestrians from walking along a road and got caught in an avalanche and then sued us for 'not locking the doors'. And guess what would have happened if we'd locked the doors and there'd been a fire? I'd have told this miserable individual to sod off but our insurers settled out of court and I couldn't stop them from doing so.
So I'd say don't come down on a big company like Specialized too heavily. They are riders, I suspect they all adjust their own bikes and want to leave it open to be changed but the company lawyers may well override them. It's modern business life. Workarounds are to put warnings in place, make the change only accessible with a code (which is then somehow leaked out), allow the change for 'off-road use only' and so on. All work, all have risks. The legal department will weigh up the lost sales for those who want to change the speed (not much, probably) against the risk of a big legal battle with the family of a rider who's now become tetraplegic and requires 24 hour care a day for perhaps 50 years of remaining life. Unfortunately for those of us who like our fun (on my Levo 2018 the speed limit is set to 45Kph!) the risk/lost sales/loss of reputation equation more often than not comes down on the side of 'less fun, less freedom, more safety for the company shareholders and directors'.
In my company we have to do the same - I used to take guests skiing off-piste. Not any more. Too dangerous for my personal wealth and my company future. I don't even recommend where they can ski on a particular day. I don't even recommend a mountain restaurant in case they get ill there. Shame, isn't it?
A viable workaround is to say the wheel size can be changed for different tyres and wheel sizes and then allow people to discover the hack to make the wheel tiny which is what they did on the pre 2019 models. Perhaps the lawyers have said that the hack is so widespread now that the company could not deny knowing about it anymore? Who knows? This might, however, mean a new one is lurking in the code somewhere waiting to be discovered...
If I had one I'd have a poke about in the firmware as I used to be a coder. But I don't and am busy enough already. Good luck to those who are undoubtedly trying to crack it now. Don't forget you can still put a device on to change the magnet output to double the speed which, whilst more expensive and less elegant, does work on almost anything. Until they start using Canbus like they do on cars to code the speed sensor to the motor, of course, and then we're probably all f**ked...
Regards, Mark