One Bigger! New Ibis HD5 bids for enduro and trail glory

Ibis Cycles has just announced the new Ibis Mojo HD5. It’s a complete new take on the firm’s hard-charging 27.5in wheeled heavy duty trail bike. Having taken cues from recent changes to the 29er Ripley trail bike, as well as the 29in Ripmo enduro bike, has Ibis made this popular trail bike one better?

What has changed? Well, enough for this to be worthy of the ‘Plus one’ numbering; the Ibis HD5 is different in travel, geometry and construction, so we’ll give them that. So, what are the differences?

For a start, the fork travel has gone up (compared to the HD4) by 10mm to 170mm, while rear travel is now 153mm. And, although that sounds like a random number, it’s the vertical travel that a 170mm fork goes through under full compression (as it’s going diagonally, see?) – so Ibis maintains that the bike actually has balanced travel, front and rear.

The seat angle of the Ibis HD5 has been steepened by a full two degrees over the HD4, but Ibis has kept the same top tube length to effectively increase the reach by 17mm on a size large and 12mm on a medium. The increase in fork travel effectively knocks the head angle back by 0.7° from 64.9° on the HD4 to a new 64.2°. Chainstays are a neat 430mm and the fork offset is a short 37mm on the 170mm forks.

The suspension and bike layout has also taken a cue from the Ripmo and Ripley. The Ripmo was the first Ibis to drop sealed bearings in favour of Igus bushings for the lower link (which doesn’t move that much) where bushings make sense, while keeping bearings for the greater arc of the upper link. This has apparently seen zero failures in the field with the nearly two year old Ripmo, so the HD5 gets the same treatment. Regardless, the bushings get a lifetime replacement warranty, while the frame gets a seven year warranty.

Something that the Ripmo and then the Ripley helped move on, was the bike’s standover height. Not for straddling it when you were chatting with your pals, but in order to fit a longer dropper and to get the saddle out of the way. This has come to the Ibis HD5 with the size large having a mere 16.5in/42cm seat tube. This means that a size Small frame will take a 125-150mm dropper post and a Medium and up will take a 170mm+ dropper.

Ibis has been working with six shock manufacturers on something it calls ‘Traction Tune’. It has been running lighter and lighter compression tunes for years, but tests over the last couple of years (and 1000 downhill runs) has shown that the rebound circuits weren’t working fast enough to get the rear wheel back down and ready for the next bump. Traction Tune is a tuning that allows a very lightly damped rebound circuit to keep up with the terrain. It’ll be shipping stock with the HD5. Other bikes in the Ibis range will be shipping with custom light tuned shocks very soon if they don’t already. And if you have an HD4, Ripmo or Ripley V4, Fox can revalve your suspension to the new specs the next time you get it serviced.

The new Ibis Mojo HD5 has already been campaigned on the sly by Ibis enduro racers Bex Baraona and Lew Buchanan – and it doesn’t seem to be slowing them down any… The bike will come in four sizes, from Small to XL (chart below), allowing riders from 5ft to 6ft6in to ride one.

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Ibis HD5 Geometry

We’ll be checking with Ibis Cycles UK for prices and delivery dates. If it’s anything as popular as the recent Ripmo and Ripley models, you’d better not hang around.

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