I have ridden both the 2015 Reign and Trance…my enduro loving, radness, slack craving heart said get the Reign (65 degree HA, 160MM travel etc) but as others have pointed out, its reeaally long and realistically I don’t do enough Enduro racing or Alps holidays to warrant that kind of bike.
I went with my head and bought the Trance frameset instead.
The rear is ‘only’ 140mm travel but it takes forks from 140-160mm. I have a set of 150mm Revs to go on and there is a thread on Pinkbike where owners have swapped the standard 200×51 shock for a 200×57 item and turned it into 157mm of rear travel, clearance is tight but it seems to work so there is scope to hunt for more travel at a later date if i really want it.
The frame is light and the build quality looks ace, iternal cable routing is tidy and the ability to swap between 135mm QR and a 142mm x 12mm thru-axle is nice. It is 650b with a tapered head tube and seems fairly future proof.
The headset came fitted (a nice surprise) and the shop even threw in Giant’s own dropper post.
The Trance was ridden by the Giant factory team in the EWS so i don’t think the Reign is necessary unless you do loads of uplift days or spend half your time in the Alps.