PB’S GIANT REIGN E+ 1
MONTH 4: Should e-bikes have dedicated drivetrains? PB’S latest experience on the Reign E+ 1 leads him to believe so
£6,299 / 29/27.5in / giant-bicycles.com
I’ve spent the best part of the last three months fettling the Giant Reign E+ 1 and I’ve finally got it how I want it. The last piece in the puzzle was moving the flip-chip in the rocker link to the high geometry setting, which raised the bottom bracket height by 5mm and steepened the head angle by 5mm. I did this not because I was constantly clipping pedals, but because raising the BB height (and my centreof-gravity) makes it easier to destabilise the bike, which in turn makes it more manoeuvrable. It helps that the steeper head angle also shortens the front centre measurement, making it easier to load the front tyre on flatter terrain.
Taken together, I can now throw the Giant around a bit easier, which is handy on a bike weighing north of 25kg. It’s still super-capable on the steep stuff because of the suspension and the long wheelbase, but I found it a lot more fun on rolling singletrack around the Surrey Hills.
And just as all of these tweaks were starting to pay off, disaster struck. I caught a big stick between the chain and the cassette and it bent the parallelogram on the Shimano XT rear mech so badly that I was only able to access about seven or eight gears in the middle of the 12-speed cassette.
Getting stuff caught in the rear mech seems par for the course these days riding an e-bike, because you tend to ride off-piste more than on an analogue machine. The longer-cage derailleurs from SRAM and Shimano also have so little ground clearance (more so on a mullet bike) so they tend to collect debris constantly. The other issue is when something does get stuck in the drivetrain, trying to back off on the pedals is almost impossible due to the overrun inherent in most e-bike motors. Overrun is where the motor is still powering the chainring for a quarter or half a revolution, even after you’ve stopped pedalling. It’s a great feature for getting the bike up and over steep steps or fallen trees, but it also means that if anything gets caught in the drivetrain, chances are, it is just going to get mangled.
The Reign E+ 1 frame comes with SRAM’S Universal Derailleur Hanger (UDH) and that’s surprisingly straight. I’d rather it wasn’t, because a spare one of those is only £8, whereas a new Shimano XT rear mech costs £110.
And this opens up a wider debate about whether e-bikes need dedicated drivetrains. I think they need something that’s either more robust, has greater ground clearance or a feature than can sense a problem, like the Overload Clutch Protection on the SRAM Eagle AXS rear mech. Failing that, I’d just like the mech hanger to bend or rotate out of the way before the rear mech gets mangled because it’d just be cheaper to replace.
WHY IT’S HERE Race-ready e-bike with alternative motor & battery technology