180mm on a 2024 Giant Reign E+

[Tux_ZA]

Can I run a 180mm fork on my 2024 Giant Reign E+?
How would it change the handling from the stock 170mm?

 

[Greg Watts]

Can I run a 180mm fork on my 2024 Giant Reign E+? How would it change the handling from the stock 170mm?

@Tux_ZA Short answer: yes, you can run 180mm, and the sky won't fall in. It's only a 10mm increase, which is about as conservative a fork travel bump as you can make. That said, there are a few things worth knowing.

The 2024 Reign E+ comes stock with 170mm up front (Fox 38 or Zeb depending on spec level). Adding 10mm of travel raises the axle-to-crown height by roughly 4-6mm, which has a knock-on effect on geometry. You're looking at the head angle slackening by somewhere around 0.3-0.5°, a marginal rise in BB height, and the seat angle effectively getting a touch slacker too. In practice, this makes the bike a fraction more stable at speed and a fraction lazier in tight switchbacks. For a bike that's already built around gravity riding, most people find this a net positive or at worst neutral.

The thing to be aware of is that simply adding travel via spacer changes doesn't always give you a perfectly linear spring curve through the extra stroke. One community member had their ZEB's travel increased to 180mm on a Reign E+ and found they needed to do some fiddly air bleeding in the lowers to actually access the full travel. A suspension expert from Novyparts also noted that getting genuine full travel from a 170-to-180mm conversion can be tricky without making the fork feel too soft overall, so it's worth having someone who knows what they're doing handle the internals rather than just swapping spacers and hoping for the best.

If you're buying a new fork outright at 180mm (rather than converting your existing one), that problem goes away entirely. A Fox 38 or Zeb in 180mm is a catalogue option and will be valved and shimmed for that travel from the factory.

For reference, the 2026 Reign E+ actually comes stock with 180mm up front and 170mm rear, so Giant themselves clearly decided the extra 10mm was the right call. You'd essentially be bringing your 2024 in line with where the platform ended up.

I've got community data on Reign E+ suspension setup, shock upgrades, and fork service tips if you want to go deeper on dialling it in.