First off, thanks to everyone's work and posts on this forum. Super helpful specially for a first-time EMTB rider like me.
Finally pulled the trigger after months of reading posts, demo rides and trolling the web. Did a quick purchase from my helpful LBS this morning and took it for a quick spin at my local trails. I am a shorter rider at 5'3" and used to 27.5 wheels and there is definitely a learning curve when trying to do the same moves on a 29er (even more with the bigger tire volume). My trails have a lot of tight switchbacks both uphill and downhill with lots of rock gardens, drops, berms and jumps. Happy to report the suspension on this model is just fine. Handling is great - just have to do a bit more body twisting with that big wheel. Brake/tire combo are not bad at all even in loose dirt trails that we have here in SoCal. Still playful enough to allow you to chuck, hop, jump or just roll over stuff. Most importantly, for an old guy like me who's pushing 50 in a year with a health condition, the climbing is awesome. On tight uphill switchbacks, I quickly found out there is a need to find the right balance between body position, power and gear to keep on going up smoothly specially through rocky spots in order to have the front wheel planted. Didn't experience any cutoff in power though when trying to keep balance going up through big rocks (didn't touch default mission app settings). Didn't try the shuttle mode - seems turbo was plenty sufficient. I initially considered the carbon comp but I liked this color the best and I figure frame material wise, alloy will give me the right flex for the type of riding that I mostly do and the components aren't too far off from the carbon (plus savings to get new gear). I rode about 8 miles with a total climb of ~2500 ft for about 45 minutes - still had 92% battery life left. I had it in eco and trail most of the time with the occasional turbo as a last resort. I demoed the new E-Trance from Giant, new Trek 7 and Haibike Xduro 9. Also saw and considered Commencal's Meta Power and the Tazer from Intense - great build but screams "dirt bike" and I couldn't get over the huge down tube. For my style of riding/trails (all-mountain/a bit enduro), color preference and trying to blend in with the regular mtb crowd - this Levo Alloy Comp made most sense. Obviously, having a good LBS close by as well as excellent customer service from Spesh was also a factor. Hope this helps.
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