SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (BRAIN) — Ibis Cycles founder Scot Nicol has heard a chorus of pleas from the brand's devotees for a while now: "Please make a longer-travel Ripley!"
The 120-millimeter-travel Ripley 29er now gets a big brother with the new Ripmo, boasting 160 millimeters of front travel and 145 millimeters of rear DW-Link squish and rolling on 29-inch wheels. Ibis calls it "the love child of a Ripley and the Mojo HD4," the Santa Cruz, California-based brand's 27.5-inch-wheeled enduro bike.
"It borrows from the Ripley in that it's got 29-inch wheels, and we've always been super impressed with the performance of that bike. It rides bigger than it is," Nicol said. "The Mojo part of it is it being bigger and more capable, and linkages as well. A lot of people are expecting it to have eccentrics like the Ripley, but we're at the limit of what its travel can be. We had to move to conventional linkages, but they're not conventional linkages in that there are bushings in the lower links now instead of bearings." Ibis backs the bushings with free lifetime replacement.
Other features include new internal cable tunnels for easier routing, 2.6-inch tire clearance, and a steep 76-degree seat angle paired with a long reach and short 44-millimeter custom fork offset.
"As you increase that front-center length, you need to mitigate the wheel growth if you can, and the fork offset is how we mitigated that. You're going to run into problems if you get the front too long," Nicol said.
The Ripmo retails for $4,099 to $9,399 complete, or $2,999 for frame only with a Fox DPX2 shock. Ibis will have the bike on display next month at the Sea Otter Classic in Booth 589.
