It may seem a bit odd that Ibis are only just now releasing their 29″ wheeled model to the world. After all the clamour appears to be about, if not for, 27″ wheeled bikes. The reasoning is pretty simple though, Ibis wanted to do it their way and they wanted to get it just right. To get to the point where they are happy enough to unleash the Ripley has taken six years of research, innovation and manufacture. This wasn’t just a matter of taking their popular Mojo and slapping some bigger wheels in, the Ripley is a totally new design, not even the DW-Link is the same. Rather than using the usual external linkages Dave Weagle (DW) worked out a way to condense the same system into two eccentrics in the seat tube.
Quick Facts:
Carbon frame.
120mm rear travel.
Designed around 120-140mm forks.
5.2lbs frame weight with Fox RP23 CTD.
Tapered head tube.
Internal cable routing.
Dropper-post hose guides.
142mm Maxle rear axle.
Geometry.
The aim with the geometry was to get the feel of 26″ wheels but with the benefits of bigger wheels. This involved playing around with headangles, fork rake and fork length to get the feel that Ibis wanted from their 29er. Ibis stress the importance of putting a fork with a 51mm offset into the front of the Ripley, anything else and you won’t be getting the ride you should. Looking at the numbers it seems Ibis has gone for a very modern long front end coupled with a short back end, something we’ve noticed on the better 29ers we’ve ridden.
Eccentric.
Ibis is often seen as being a bit eccentric, now it’s very eccentric. By cramming all the claimed benefits of the DW-Link into two eccentrics rather than linkages Ibis have been able to save weight, keep the moving bits away from dirt make the design cleaner (for more on Ibis and it’s take on industrial design check out Issue 80 of Singletrack) . As if that wasn’t enough Ibis also reckon this design leads to a stiffer design than could be achieved with the regular DW-Link.
The Full Story.
Scot Nicol can spin a yarn better than most so rather than chopping up his words you can read the full low-down on the Ripley from Chuck Ibis himself here:
http://www.ibiscycles.com/bikes/ripley_29/#story
Needless to say we’re keen to get in line for a play on a Ripley, it certainly ticks a lot of boxes, flicks a lot of switches and floats a raft of boats.
For more on everything Ibis Ripley related take a look here: http://www.ibiscycles.com/bikes/ripley_29/#overview
Comments (11)
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Oh Ibis, you tease me with these short top tubes and wheelbases 🙁 Santa Cruz does 2 sizes bigger than that XL.
There’s something about those New York pictures that make the wheels on that bike look massive……….. 😉
loving the fact that they’ve copied my nicolai helius AC 29er with almost the exact geometry……………..only i’ve had mine for 14 months now 🙂
Beautiful, but bearings sitting directly on carbon and pf bb…I’ll pass
No mention of price?
Loving the fact that they spent the first five or so years of development waiting til t_l_r received his Nicolai and gave it the seal of approval so they could then (almost) copy the geometry and finally get it into production…
Some similarities to the Yeti’s SB95.
lol @ vinnyeh, but the geometrical similarities made me chuckle !
the germans are just so efficient !
Impressive…..very impressive.
Also impressive are the New York publicity shots, i like the fact that they are so very different from the usual advertising.
I don’t believe he geo numbers. they don’t quite stack up based on practical experience of a bike I have sitting outside. Mainly the wheelbase with a 68,6 HA
If they don’t quote a price, you can’t afford it. My wallet just ran away and hid itself.