IBIS RIPLEY MARK 4

I’ve been racing bikes for a long while – since I was 14 years old (almost 40 years) – and racing MTB on and off for much of that period. But I’ve only had two dedicated XC ‘race’ bikes. The first a custom-made Ti hardtail (written about as part of my story about renewing old forks in MBA recently) and the second a full-suspension carbon bike I recently sold.

My needs are a bit different these days, with 24-hour races in my past and even club XC races getting more technical than they were 10 years ago, perhaps reflecting the changes at the World Cup level. Also, I do a lot more Enduro races, but around Canberra many I have done were ‘over biked’ with my actual Enduro bike and left me wanting something more than my old XC bike.

Enter the Ibis. One of the newest short travel bikes on the market that also subscribes to the long, low and slack school of thought. For a rider who is 193cm tall and has a 200+ cm