FIRST RIDE: Giant Reign E Pro

Giant Bicycle invited us to ride their latest and greatest eMTB, the Reign E+ 0 Pro, in the French Alps. Riding among the cows in their pastures, and up and down mountain trails and single tracks in the Les Gets resort, we learned just how capable, powerful and fun the enduro-ready Reign E is.

The bike features Giant’s enduro bike design skills and their excellent Maestro Suspension and pairs it with the new version of the Yamaha PW-X2 motor, which has been significantly revamped to provide much better support at any cadence level. They actually designed it to provide support all the way up to 170 RPM. Why? No rider will likely ever pedal at that high of a cadence, but that’s not the reason. By changing that parameter, it can efficiently deliver up to 50% greater support at 100 RPM. It’s a noticeable difference. The second advantage here is that the motor is around 15% quieter than the original PW-X.

By Giant’s own nomenclature, they still simply call it the “Sync Drive Pro” motor. It comes stock with an integrated 500Wh battery, and soon there will be a “range extender” extra, external battery that can sit in the bottle cage and adds another 250Wh of power.

The controller is Giant’s own RideControl ONE, like the Trance E+ and StanceE+ have, but this now offers one additional LED, and one additional control. If you toggle the assist level all the way to “off”, then go one more button press down, you enter Yamaha’s new Smart Assist. Similar to Bosch’s eMTB mode, it provides more or less electric assist power based on the rider’s own torque input. The harder you pedal, the more power you get from the motor. It’s very intuitive.

The head angle is more slack than the Trance, and the reach is longer. It’s a very forgiving bike, which allowed us to ride faster and more confidently over everything. Pulling up the front end was a little harder, but with 170mm of travel in the front (&160mm in the rear), we rolled over just about everything, anyway.

The bike took everything we threw at it and never bucked us off. By the end of the first ride, we were taking hairier parts of the trails than we would normally.

LEVELS

The top of the line, level 0 as Giant calls it, features the best of the best components, including SRAM wireless rear derailleur, wireless (and very instantaneous) dropper post, 30mm carbon rims. The frame itself is made from Giant’s own proprietary ALUXX SL-grade aluminum.

PRICING

The Reign E+ 0 Pro comes in at $8500, with features like the new SRAM Eagle eTAP AXS shifter, SRAM/Praxis carbon cranks and comes in Chameleon Green/Gold.

The Reign E+ 1 Pro drops the SRAM drivetrain in favor of a Shimano Deore XT 1×12 setup, for $6000 and is available in Electric Red.

And finally, the Reign E+2 Pro goes with a SRAM GX Eagle drivetrain and comes in Tempus Grey/Desert colorway for $5500.

We’ll go more in-depth with our full review in the magazine, so stay tuned!