any giant reign owners (2015)

I've been tempted to try the 2015/2016 Reign, as I have had a few of the past Reigns and really liked them.

Riding the Trance SX now, that I have setup nicely, but an intrigued but what the new Reign could offer.

The parts of the Reign that I would like is the slightly slacker HA for the steeps, longer wheelbase for stability.

The parts of the Reign that wouldn't work for me are the low bb, I hit my pedals on the Trance SX (160mm) more than I think I should, the Reign would be scary. Long wheelbase, never been great on tight corners on the bikes I have owned and the Reign is definitely longer than those.

Not certain on how the longer top tube would affect my riding. At 5'9"+ I have always been on medium Giants (Reigns and Trances), with anywhere from a 50mm to 60mm stem. I like to have the handle bar higher, usually 2 spacers under stem, 740 handlebar with 30mm - 35mm rise. Not certain on how that would work with the much longer reach of the new geo.

I have a buddy with one… Loved it . (2015) matte green with green\yellow
problem being that the frame cracked and Giant has no warranty frames available. he has been bike-less for 4 weeks now . and last i heard ( last week) no solve in the immediate future..

He did love His Reign .. loved it way more than the Slayer it replaced.. did a lot for his fun factor on the mountain as well

I'm in the same boat. Crack in mine and replacement frames unavailable until December, supposedly. I'd be interested to know where his frame cracked, if you know.

Trends are largely consumer and rider driven and proven long before they go to production so I'm skeptical that any advancement in frame geometry is merely throwing numbers into the wind and seeing where they land.

For what it's worth, short wheel bases and high bbs were driven by riders almost 2 decades ago to meet the demand of riding skinnies and ladder bridges with low speed steep exits and sharp corners. Since this type of riding has all but disappeared, the need for such bikes has followed suit.

Today's style of riding is not only faster due to new trail types being constructed but also due to the level of skill the new generation of riders exhibit and the preferred trails they ride. Faster speeds require stability which comes from some geo changes like lower bbs, longer FCs, and slacker HTAs.

If you're pining for old school bikes, better start cruising the buy and sell for 2002 VPS frames. Probably not too hard to find something.

come on, ken, suggesting that the current trend of ultra low bb's is not 100% awesome does not mean people want to go back to the olden days, and that doesn't mean that there can't be a middle ground. I'm shocked at how often I hit my pedals on my reign, even when descending, they're really low, and even aggressive cornering in ruts results in dragging pedals and clipping them off things, yeah, you can semi-adjust to it, but it doesn't change the fact that they're really low bikes. and don't get me wrong, at speed the bike is a pure beast, but the fact that giant went to 170 cranks and raised the BB a bit for the 2016 model says that even they get that there's a limit to how low stuff should be.

I've been tempted to try the 2015/2016 Reign, as I have had a few of the past Reigns and really liked them.

Riding the Trance SX now, that I have setup nicely, but an intrigued but what the new Reign could offer.

The parts of the Reign that I would like is the slightly slacker HA for the steeps, longer wheelbase for stability.

The parts of the Reign that wouldn't work for me are the low bb, I hit my pedals on the Trance SX (160mm) more than I think I should, the Reign would be scary. Long wheelbase, never been great on tight corners on the bikes I have owned and the Reign is definitely longer than those.

Not certain on how the longer top tube would affect my riding. At 5'9"+ I have always been on medium Giants (Reigns and Trances), with anywhere from a 50mm to 60mm stem. I like to have the handle bar higher, usually 2 spacers under stem, 740 handlebar with 30mm - 35mm rise. Not certain on how that would work with the much longer reach of the new geo.

if you're primarily pedaling on technical singletrack, I'd probably stick with the Trance SX. I went with the reign since it replaced my old glory and I wanted something more gravity oriented. Had I been looking for an everyday trail bike I would've likely looked more in the Trance vein.

Trends are largely consumer and rider driven and proven long before they go to production so I'm skeptical that any advancement in frame geometry is merely throwing numbers into the wind and seeing where they land.

For what it's worth, short wheel bases and high bbs were driven by riders almost 2 decades ago to meet the demand of riding skinnies and ladder bridges with low speed steep exits and sharp corners. Since this type of riding has all but disappeared, the need for such bikes has followed suit.

Today's style of riding is not only faster due to new trail types being constructed but also due to the level of skill the new generation of riders exhibit and the preferred trails they ride. Faster speeds require stability which comes from some geo changes like lower bbs, longer FCs, and slacker HTAs.

If you're pining for old school bikes, better start cruising the buy and sell for 2002 VPS frames. Probably not too hard to find something.

I'm guessing Rocky is coming out with something long, low and slack then.

Trends are largely consumer and rider driven and proven long before they go to production so I'm skeptical that any advancement in frame geometry is merely throwing numbers into the wind and seeing where they land.

…

If you're pining for old school bikes, better start cruising the buy and sell for 2002 VPS frames. Probably not too hard to find something.

I'm guessing Rocky is coming out with something long, low and slack then.

yeah, ken seems a bit touchy doesn't he ;)

i'm guessing a new slayer! given how progressive the last one was, and how glutted the market is with 160mm travel endurobro rigs right now, the bar's set pretty high

:drool:

yeah ok, it was a short lived experiment. 160x160, 64ha. not totally unrideable, but certainly couldn't get lazy with pedal placement. felt super rad though.

Rocky has never led the race for the lowest BB. However, you could argue the shore is a great test bed for how low you can go before things get stupid. I had a nice time riding old school classics this weekend on my low BB steed.

how low you can go before things get stupid.

Imo anything below 335 is ignorant.
And what you said above, only to a point.
Like the bike industry does the step-and-fetch-it for consumers. :rolleyes:
The need for continued profits is a driver of change. It would be naive to think the bike industry doesn't engage in that.
The examples are legion.

I've been on a med 2016 for a few months and all the claims above are true. My cranks and pedals have been smashed around and I do climb with the shock in firm, haven't used the fork travel adjust, don't need to. The reign and nomad are very similar on paper, and riding style is more ontop of the bars then the old get behind the bottom bracket. These bikes are weapons, its been all over Pemberton, Chilcotins, bike park and Whistler valley with no issues. New xt 11 speed is great and NSB is working on chainrings for the new bolt pattern. Only issue I've had is the hideous colour of the advanced 1, which is the exact same colour option for the new nomad.

my Entourage was a pedal/crank basher on the techy single track , my 167 has a similar BB height to the Entourage and i hit the pedals way less . i still bash pedal but again i like narrow old school steep rocky and rootie gnar .

Ken i speak the YPS you speak of , got a 04 Shore sitting in the bike room , looks weird being the biggest travel bike of the 3 i have , tall , short and still fun once in a while to play on .

Trends are largely consumer and rider driven and proven long before they go to production so I'm skeptical that any advancement in frame geometry is merely throwing numbers into the wind and seeing where they land.

For what it's worth, short wheel bases and high bbs were driven by riders almost 2 decades ago to meet the demand of riding skinnies and ladder bridges with low speed steep exits and sharp corners. Since this type of riding has all but disappeared, the need for such bikes has followed suit.

Today's style of riding is not only faster due to new trail types being constructed but also due to the level of skill the new generation of riders exhibit and the preferred trails they ride. Faster speeds require stability which comes from some geo changes like lower bbs, longer FCs, and slacker HTAs.

If you're pining for old school bikes, better start cruising the buy and sell for 2002 VPS frames. Probably not too hard to find something.

If you re-read what I said, maybe you'll notice that in some respects at least we agree :)

My current main ride, which I designed myself happens to have pretty well all the current trends, and one can get away with a low BB on a hardtail (not that RMB know anything about them any more :P ). It does seem though that some bike companies seem to forget the 'normal' riders. Sure, people test bikes but who? John Smith or Wade Simmons? I've heard constant moaning about low BBs on AM / 'enduro' bikes since 2006 and they keep getting lower. When will it end?
As for new styles of riding and new trails, you mean the same ones as the early 90's (in the UK at least). Just shredding singletrack as fast as possible. Nothing at all has changed there. Hell, we were even 'freeriding' in quarries in the UK in 1989. I just think it's funny that bike companies market full on race bikes to people who'd be way better on something a bit more forgiving. Much as I sort of hate endless categories of bikes, I quite like the fact that road bikes tend to come in 'race' and 'can race but with a hint of comfort and less likely to throw you on the floor' styles. With high end mountain bikes these days all you can really buy is a Ferrari.

I do actually have an old school ride….but the BB is 'only' around 360mm and on the Shore that feels great to be honest. If I was riding anywhere else though I'd probably go to 340. Lower than that can GTFOIMHO.

BB heights are so trail/area dependent. Guys are running 320mm (static) on bikes back in the UK and loving it. Admittedly only 120mm bikes but still.

Oh and Sram need to make 165mm arms in XO1/XX1.

:orly:

I had to mount the largest tyres I could find in search of pedal clearance and in doing so went down to a 28 cr and you're saying that now losing 5mm off the length of my crank arm won't make a difference grunting up steep pitches?

Right.

http://www.cobbcycling.com/crank-length-coming-full-circle/
(Some may cry pseudoscience, but an interesting perspective)

Which part are you questioning, the recent 'bike science' on crank arm length, wattage and energy expenditure? Or just the perception of more leverage? Been down this road as a full timer road wheenie. 180 on TT bike, 175 on the road and 175 being the only way to go on the mtb. Times have change…
I'm not saying 170mm is a game changer on a long travel low bb bike, but it does prevent some strikes from happening and zero loss in power.