Yeah go with the Vado SL, I own one and it is a fantastic bike and thanks to it being a bike and not an e-moped I can ride it anywhere that bikes are allowed. I am currently building it out to make it perfect for me as it was the owner of the shop I previously worked at's before he passed away and I want to keep the bike going but if I am riding it I need to do a few things for me that he would probably approve on some and maybe not all the way on others until he rode and would say damn I like it.

The great thing as well with the Specialized is your last request of being able to go into a bike shop to get it worked on. Most shops will see a Aventonton or similar online hub drive thing and say no we don't work on that but Specialized you are more likely to get help and will definitely get help at a Specialized dealer.

Aventonton and similar don't really have any brick and mortar presence and even if they did probably a lot of shops wouldn't want to service them that sold them if they didn't have to. I know trying to get info about their own bikes from them was like pulling teeth that were not going to come out without nasty destructive methods that would leave a bad taste in everyones mouth. We need a part for a customers fork and they could only come back with the same information I had already told them and I spoke with CS folks and the "engineers" and all of them were stumped on their own bike and could only read the copy from their website. They wouldn't even credit the customer for the part that would have been warranty.

Really the only money you save is purely looking at only initial costs and no other costs and that is never a great way to go. Always look at it long term, Specialized I know will be in business for a long time and they have excellent support for a while we had customers with old e-bikes the original ones and I think nearly all of them got new bikes at a heavy discount from Specialized because they knew their first gen stuff (which is long gone and no longer anything close to what they are building now) was not up to par long term and plus a lifetime warranty on their frames really does pay off if you have an issue which I have had (not with an e-bike though).