JAMIE’S SPECIALIZED TURBO KENEVO SL COMP

MONTH 7: Business as usual for the Kenevo SL? No chance. Jamie gets the party started with a 27.5in wheel out back

£7,400 • 29in • specialized.com

Ithought it would be fun to mullet the Kenevo SL this month, take out the 29in wheel on the back and slot in a 27.5in. Why? Because it’s there, of course. And it was incredibly easy to execute – I found an old wheel lying around in the mbr shed, swapped over the cassette, rotor and tyre, took it for a spin around the street then headed home because I’d forgotten to swap the magnet over too, then went out again for a ride. Easy. Who’d have thought it would be so simple to be a bike designer?

Then I started tinkering with the geometry. As you’ll know if you’ve been reading along, the Kenevo SL has three head angle settings, and independently of that two different BB heights.

This made it possible to get almost exactly the same geometry I’d perfected as a full 29er bike on the new mullet creation. I took the low setting I’d used on the 29er bike and flipped it into high mode. Bingo, I had a bike with near identical geometry in either mullet or 29er mode. How near? The difference was 0.1 degree on the head angle.

Riding my new Kenevo SLMX was instantly familiar of course, but proved very noticeably easier to slash corners and square-off turns. This is both good and bad, because I can break traction more easily when I want to. Conversely, the bike will break traction now more easily even when I don’t want it to. This should become easier to judge the more I ride it, but the line between crashing and staying upright is tighter now. In theory the bike will be slower on fast sections of trail now without the 29er on the rear, but this I didn’t feel – that’ll have to wait until I can spend more time riding with others rather than messing around in the woods on my own.

I’m excited to take this further now, and try dropping the bike into its low geometry setting. I’m expecting pedal bonks galore, but a whole load of extra stability with it too.

WHY IT’S HERE Diet e-bikes, the best or worst of both worlds?

I’ve not been riding the Reign E+ 1 because I’m still without a rear derailleur. Shimano has some stock coming, I think around October time…?!! I’ve also been looking at other brands including SRAM, Microshift and TRP, but drivetrain components are still really thin on the ground. As a stop gap, I’ve been riding my previous mbr longtermer, the Haibike Allmtn 6.

It gave me a chance to compare the ride quality of both bikes and to be honest, for the riding I do mostly, which is in the Surrey Hills, I’m leaning towards the Allmtn 6. It’s shorter in the wheelbase and reach than the Giant and feels more manoeuvrable and fun. As I mentioned in a previous post the Reign E+ 1 is quite a bit longer than claimed, which suggests I could downsize to a medium. Then again, if I was riding in the Alps would I want a smaller bike? Probably not.

Despite being derailleur-less, Giant did send me an Energypak Plus range extender, which is a secondary battery that adds an extra 250Wh and around an hour to the run time, mode depending. To fit it, you have to bolt a mounting plate to two holes in the top of the down tube and the battery then clips on with the cable attached to the charging port. There’s a Velcro strap to stop the cable flapping around and Giant also includes a handy bottle cage adapter plate, which you attach when you’re not using the battery. Neat.

Since the Reign E+ 1 is off the road, I still don’t know how seamlessly the system works – will it drain the range extender first, or will I have to physically disconnect it once depleted? What I do know is that it adds 2kg to the bike and that weight sits high up, so I suspect it will affect the handling, possibly in a positive way because raising the centre of gravity actually makes the bike drop into turns a bit easier.

At £430, the Energypak Plus should be a great add-on if you’re racing an enduro. It should allow you to do some practice runs with it fitted, saving your main battery for the event proper. Which is exactly what I’m planning to do at the end of this month. I’ve entered the Berkshire Turbo E-MTB Enduro at Matterly Estate and I’ll be putting this system to the test. It will also give me an opportunity to see how the Reign E+ 1 fares in the heat of competition.

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WHY IT’S HERE Race-ready e-bike with alternative motor & battery technology

Geometry setting flipped to high for smaller wheel

Smaller rear tyre has to work hard to control lively ride

THE RIDER JAMIE DARLOW Position Front section editor Mostly Rides Surrey Hills Height 6ft 1in Weight 82kg THE BIKE ■ Lightweight e-bike, splitting the weight difference between the full-power Kenevo and regular Enduro ■ Less than half the power of a full-fat e-bike, with 240W and 35Nm of torque, and a small 320Wh battery (with optional 160Wh range extender) ■ Entry-level Turbo Kenevo SL gets Fox Performance suspension, Fox Rhythm fork and SRAM GX drivetrain, but retains the full carbon frame ■ Progressive geometry and sizing makes the Kenevo SL a full-blown enduro bike

THE RIDER JAMES BRACEY Position Freelance writer Mostly rides South Wales Height 6ft 1in Weight 75kg THE BIKE ■ New Jam platform ups travel to 150mm with 29in wheels Same linkagedriven single-pivot suspension of the old Jam but changes the shock position and kinematics to make it more progressive ■ Integrated cable routing where the cables pass through the 50mm CIS stem and into the frame The mid-range Jam 6.9 features an XT groupset and Maxxis Minion tyres