By now, we’ve reviewed both the original carbon Renegade Elite and the steel Renegade Exploit road bikes, both earning high praise. Now, they’ve made them even better by switching to flat mount disc brakes, adding rack and fender tabs to the fork, multiple-choice thru axle formats, stealth dropper post routing and more.
They also tweaked the rear seatstay-to-dropout junction to give the axle a little more leverage in flexing the stays. That translates to improved compliance, both on the carbon fiber and steel versions. Ride on down for more details…
Starting at the back, the new modular thru-axle system is quite clever. By using alloy inserts, they can adapt the bike to all three major thru axle standards:
The inserts are used on the fork and the rear dropout, both based on the 12mm size.
The switch to flat mount brakes cleans up the design. The dropout extends upward from the axle for a bit, pushing the seatstay’s end point up and back slightly. Combined with the lower seatstay placement on the seat tube, the result is better leverage to flex the flattened seatstays over bumps. New rack and fender mounts are stuck directly on the side of the frame rather than using the hidden design from before.
The Jamis keeps the massive bottom bracket section to drive all of your power rearward with no lateral flex.
Another change is a hidden seatpost binder bolt for a smooth, flat top surface. Hidden inside the frame is routing for a stealth dropper seatpost.
