First Ride: The 2022 Ibis Exie is Made in USA & Ready to Race

Ibis Cycles celebrates its 40-year anniversary this year - about as long as the mountain bike has existed. I’d excuse any brand who could make such a claim for celebrating it with a six-figure “We were there before you were born” video production, along with commemorative graphics and a glitzy follow-up marketing campaign.

Hate to be the spoiler, but the folks at Ibis were too busy for any of that nonsense. To mark the occasion, Ibis worked in secret for three years: first, to develop a competitive dual-suspension cross-country race bike; and second, to build a factory near their Santa Cruz, California, headquarters where they could manufacture and assemble it. Those are awfully big checks to write for a small bike brand, but Ibis managed to cash both by their 40th birthday. Here’s the exclusive story.


Meet Exie

Few industries are more overpopulated with clever marketing hacks than cycling. Compound that with a worldwide abundance of internet domain squatters and it seems inconceivable that the simplest name for a cross-country mountain bike escaped their nets. Exie, right?


Ibis won’t be sponsoring a World Cup XC team in the near future and they understand that most Exies will be owned by privateers, many of whom pay retail prices and must train and race on the same bike. Its 100mm travel dw-Link rear suspension pivots on a combination of cartridge bearings and bushings that carry a lifetime replacement warranty. Using a low leverage ratio and a conventional-length 190 x 45mm shock ensures suspension support for a wide range of rider weights, and frames are available in four sizes, each with an adjusted seat tube angle and front center to keep racers in their climbing sweet spots.


Features & Geometry

The Exie's internal cables and hoses are routed through molded-in pipes while, depending upon frame size, you’ll have room for two water bottles inside the frame. Molded chainstay padding keeps the Exie silent running and, paying homage to downcountry riders, Ibis kept the Exie’s seat tube low and arrow straight in case its owner opts for a maximum-stroke dropper post upgrade. Oh yeah, and there’s room for a 2.4-inch tire in the back.


About the numbers: Ibis chose to reel in some of the stem length that traditional XC racers prefer and make up that distance by lengthening the Exie’s front center. Reach begins at 413mm for small frames and increases across four size-options to 513mm for the X-large model. With only 100mm of rear-suspension travel, the Exie can get away with an intelligently low, 339mm bottom bracket height. Head tube angles are sit at a relatively neutral 67.2 degrees, while all sizes share the same, 435mm chainstay length.

Exie’s effective seat tube angle bucks contemporary “Steeper is better” logic, but not by much. Ibis’ reasoning is to conserve energy, especially during extended climbs. Today’s upright seat tube angles, combined with extended front centers are best suited for steeper and more technical climbs. That combination helps to maintain a more balanced position over the bike at extreme gradients and keeps the front wheel properly weighted. The tradeoff for that aggressive climbing stance, however, is two-fold. First, it transfers a measure of the rider’s weight from the saddle to the handlebars, which can be tiresome on flat sections and mild up-grades. Second, unless you happen to be tall, that forward weight shift tends to erode rear-wheel traction when the grades aren’t stupid steep.

Exie Geometry

Ibis discovered through testing that a milder seat tube angle lets the saddle counter much of the rider’s leg power, which saves energy that the rider would have otherwise expended needlessly through upper body muscles. To balance the Exie fore and aft, Ibis gradually increases the seat tube angle as the frame sizes grow. In this way, short riders gain the rear-wheel traction they need, while taller riders, who typically suffer from too much weight transfer to the rear, are moved forward to keep their front wheels comfortably pinned to the ground. I spent two days riding the Exie on a variety of trails near Santa Cruz to test that theory.

When you can get one: Ibis will release the Exie this summer as a frame with a Fox Factory DPS Remote shock for $4,499 USD and in three builds, all suspended by Fox Factory DPS Remote shocks and Step-Cast 120mm forks: a $7,999 version based on Shimano Deore XT components, a SRAM X01 version for $9,199, and an all-in version for $12,799 that features SRAM XX1 AXS, Shimano XTR, Enve, Industry Nine and Cane Creek goodness.

bike designs. In response, Hans initiated the Exie project with a short list of specifications: It had to be competitive at the highest level, reasonably priced, adept at handling technical terrain, and its frame (size medium with a real shock) had to weigh less than 4.4 pounds (2kg). Everything else was negotiable.

The end of an era: For decades, the evolution of World Cup XC race bikes was: take a pro road frame, widen the rear stays, slacken the head tube a couple of degrees and raise it high enough to clear a 100mm-stroke fork. Squeak it through testing and give it a weight limit – Boom! To add rear suspension, begin with your hardtail, minimize travel to 100 millimeters or less, eliminate swingarm pivots, overdrive the tiniest shock you can find, squeeze it through testing, and give it a weight limit – Done!

That’s great if your customer demographic fixates on blue-trail KOMs and thinks six raisins, three poached anchovies and a tablespoon of peas is dinner. As Ibis zeroed in on the Exie’s geometry, however, the new bike was becoming a capable descender – to the point where the staff were pushing test mules far beyond the bike’s original design envelope.



Future-proofing the Exie to survive in a much more aggressive environment meant increasing the frame’s strength without busting Hans' maximum weight goal. Solving that puzzle meant reshuffling three pounds of paper-thin unidirectional carbon fiber across nine feet of frame tubing until they found the razor’s edge between minimum weight and maximum strength.

I got enough saddle time aboard the Exie to predict that a lot of riders are going to fall in love with this bike. Day one began with about seven miles of fireroad climbing through redwood forests, followed by a roller-coaster ride down a handful of trails that would have forced me to pay close attention aboard a 150-millimeter travel trail bike. Recent rains ensured a fair mix of hero traction and whoa-nelly grease which added to the fun. Day two began with a couple miles of fast-paced singletrack climbing that was punctuated by punchy technical sections. Back in the woods, we chased each other up and down a series of trails that emulated modern World Cup XCO tracks - lots of elevation changes, spiced with roots and blue-line features and couple of flat out luge runs to keep it exciting.

my usual, 23psi front and 25psi rear. The resulting ride felt firm when cranking out of the saddle, but not to the point where the bike got jostled around in the rocks and roots.

I downsized from long-travel enduro-style bikes a number of years ago. My daily driver is a Pivot Switchblade with 137mm of rear-wheel travel and a 150mm fork. Sans pedals, it weighs 29.8 pounds, which qualifies as a lightweight among modern trail bikes. My first pedal strokes aboard the Exie, however, were a paradigm shift. Shedding eight pounds makes a big difference. I expect right-now acceleration from any cross country bike and the Exie offers that in two flavors. For sprints and fast paced hard-surface sections, push the dual-lockout lever and the Exie morphs into a flat-bar gravel bike. (Disclosure: My bike didn't have this feature, so I had to manually fake it.) For everything else, its dw-link rear suspension keeps the tires planted while ensuring that the bike spurts forward with every precious pedal stroke.

being able to sense that something is going wrong before it actually does allows you to stay ahead of the bike at speed and in adverse situations. I could feel the tread blocks giving way well before the tires broke loose around corners.

Saving the best for last, Ibis got the Exie's geometry right, both for its stated purpose as a cross country racer and for its inevitable destiny as an ambassador for trail bike sanity. Its steering feels light and precise. Overcook a corner and it settles into an easy drift until it can find more grip, and its adjusted reach and seat tube angles place the rider in a sweet spot that feels remarkably well balanced in almost all situations. As advertised, its 73.8-degree seat tube angle encouraged rear-wheel traction when climbs became dicey and gave my arms and shoulders a rest while I was powering in the saddle. And, it cast some doubt whether or not the neopopular forward-and-aggressive steep seat tube stance is best for every rider. One aspect that I'm sure of, however, is the Exie's 67.2 degree head angle, which was an excellent compromise: slack enough to keep me hungry for blue lines to turn black without creating an unnecessary workload to keep the bike on line while I was climbing.

Experiencing the Exie's calm demeanor in the handling department, combined with enviable efficiency at the pedals was an a-ha moment for me. I had yet to throw a leg over a cross-country race bike that was so easy to ride and never this enjoyable. It was once believed that XC races were won on the climbs, so every aspect of a race bike was dedicated to that solitary purpose. The reality, however, is that races are won at the finish line. Time and energy wasted by bouncing around on a non-compliant chassis and by forced errors due to poor handling compound quickly. The Exie's blend of new-school geometry with dash of sensible restraint ensures that more of the effort you expend during a race will be directed towards the finish line. For trail riders, the equation is simpler: Less fuss, more fun.


Epilogue

Somehow, cross-country trail bikes became enduro racers. Then, as enduro bikes approached the technical capability of DH machines, they invalidated most reasons for owning a Big Bike beyond racing and Rampage-level freeride. The downside of enduro machines, however, was in the weight and drag penalties they incurred to win that battle. Now, enduro bikes are suffering a similar fate as riders grow weary of chuffing 35-pound marshmallows uphill to enjoy three minutes of descending and are opting for e-MTBs to fast-forward the climbing segments of their double-black playtime. A sizeable vacuum formed in the wake of this overindulgence for an unapologetically lightweight trail bike armed with capable geometry which is truly enjoyable to pedal. That's what the Exie is - and if you want, you can race it too.

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