BikeDibley

Evil's hard hitting hardtail frame has been with us for a fair few years now. Visually, nothing much has changed apart from new colour ways and slightly better tyre clearance. However, Evil has made their new Sovereign £255 cheaper without sacrificing ride quality. In 2006 the Evil Sovereign was praised for its exceptional ride quality and fabulous attributes for being a true 'all mountain' hardtail. The problem was, for the price of the old Sovereign, you'd be well on your way to buying a complete 'all mountain' full suspension bike. £750 was considered far too pricey for most people, especially when the build material was steel! Don’t write off the last sovereign yet, it wasn’t just made of steel, but Reynolds steel…the best steel there is.

The new challenge for Evil bikes

Not many people are willing to spend £1000 on a hardtail mountain bike frame, less-still are happy to pay that much for a steel frame that wasn’t really very light. At this time, Evil were relatively new to the market and like Aston Martin in the mid-nineties, they needed a saviour to sell more without sacrificing desirability stakes. For 2010, Evil delivers us their Aston Martin DB9…

Saving over £400 bringing the retail price to just £595. Evil have done this by waving good bye to their Reynolds 853/725 custom tubing and employing double-butted Tange Prestige instead. The challenge, was to employ another steel that was as supple as Reynolds, without increasing weight or lowering strength. Tange’s Prestige tubeset has done very well indeed. 

Attention to detail

Superb attention to detail can be found everywhere on this bike. Like subtle 'Evil' logo’s embossed on the ends of the seatstays, very well thoguht out cable routing and integrated ISCG mounting tabs for your favourite chain device or Truvativ’s new Hammerschmidt chainset. The cable routing is most important for me, who enjoys the benefits of a 14 speed Rohloff 500/14 Speedhub for trouble free gears. Also useful, are the sliding dropouts which enables the use of derailleur gears, singlespeed or being able to run a hub gear like me.

How it rides

Coming from a full suspension bike may make this bike feel a little taught and stiff, but trust me…it's your imagination. The steel frame manages to shave off the harsh edges of the forest track, while giving you all the added confidence that you’ve recently lost by giving up the rear suspension on your other bike.

I ride my bikes hard and don't hold back when I'm on a cross country ride and spot a neat drop off or dirt jump I want to ride. With the Sovereign, I’m able to ride with my saddle high, but with a moments notice, drop the saddle and ride as hard as I can. It's rare to be able to do this on a bike without fear of breaking it, but this Evil is seriously tough.

Uphill, I find the front end a little high. Evil recommend running a 140mm travel fork, though, when I am running a 160mm travel Magura Wotan which comes with a remote lever to drop travel to 120mm. In the 120mm setting, it climbs much better. The sliding dropouts mean you can set the wheelbase to be short or long. I use my bike for all purposes, so set my dropouts at a medium length to make wheelies easier while still enabling me to climb with confidence and little slipping on loose surfaces. The only obvious downside is the weight of the frame. At 6.1lbs, it’s no featherweight, but nor is it extreme for a frame that can put up with so much abuse.

Downhill is amazing. There you go I said it…I've never descended on a hardtail bike as quickly with as much confidence as this. It's surefooted and urges you to always push that little bit harder.Spot a big gap jump half way down? No problem, you can do it.

Conclusion

Low stand over height and a wealth of versatility makes this an ultimate 'do anything' hardtail frame. I've built mine with trouble free drive, powerful brakes, long travel fork and xc comfort to build a bike I can ride uphill reasonably fast on, but downhill with prowess and purpose. What I really love, is I can raise the saddle and add SPD’s to ride cross country, but put on my flat pedals and drop the saddle and I can bust no-footers' off drop offs and practice my 360’s. Bombproof in an all-round package. With the growing popularity of hub gears, though, it's a shame not to see Rohloff specific dropout options which means I've had to use Rohloff's ugly torque arm. A small modification to the frame should solve that