Review: Ibis' 4th-Generation Ripley Is More Capable, But Still Very Much A Ripley

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What's New?

Everything, actually. Unlike the third version of the Ripley, the fourth is completely new from tip to tail. Ibis threw all the usual ingredients into the bowl, too: The V4's head angle has been relaxed, the seat angle got way steeper, and the reach has gotten way (for Ibis) reachier. Going slacker and longer is the oft-applied 'how to make your trail bike rip' recipe, of course, but there are other things as well.

The Ripley is still a dw-link bike, but its 120mm of travel now runs on actual links instead of those neat eccentrics, with the bottom one coming straight off the bigger-travel Ripmo that the fresh Ripley shares more than just a passing resemblance with. Ibis says that all these changes make for a ''significantly reduced the frame weight and increased stiffness.''

C'mon now, you know that brand new bikes always weighs less than ever while also being stiffer than ever. Ibis says the new Ripley comes in 0.65lb lighter than its predecessor, making for a 5.6lb frame with a Fox DPS shock.

The Details

If you're going to make a new frame, you might as well sort out all the annoying details. One of those was the cable routing. It wasn't difficult to deal with the old bike's bolt-on caps and small-ish openings, but it also wasn't easy. Now it is easy, courtesy of molded-in internal tubes to feed the housing through, no swearing needed. Ibis has stayed with the threaded bottom bracket, but there's now a splined ISCG ring around the shell for a chain guide so you can go downcountry-ing with confidence.

And speaking of crotch clearance, Ibis has finally binned their lengthy seat-tubes to make room for longer droppers. A medium will play nice with a 170 to 185mm post, and the small-sized frames can easily fit a 125mm to 150mm post.




Proving that things will change if we moan about them enough, Ibis has created a bit more room for larger water bottles. A normal, large-sized bottle will fit, and I can just barely get my massive Podium bottle in there. It's still using "standard" Boost hub spacing rather than that strange Super Boost thing, and this will only ever be a single-ring bike.

The Ripley Gets Way Longer and a Bit Slacker

With relatively steep front-ends and short reach numbers, Ibis hasn't exactly been leading the charge when it comes to modern slack and long geometry over the last few years. That's especially true if we go back and look at the preceding Ripley platforms; an original large-sized Ripley had a 406mm reach, 68.5-degree head angle, and a 71.5-degree seat angle. But this one? This one is different. A large Ripley now gets a roomy 475mm reach (450mm for a medium) that should work well with the bike's much steeper 76-degree seat angle. That's a 47mm and 3-degree jump from the last version, by the way, which isn't the conservative Ibis that we've seen over the years.

The bike's head angle has been relaxed to 66.5-degrees as well, and Ibis has designed it around forks with 44mm of offset.

Revised Suspension Design

Let's get back to the suspension for a minute. Like every Ripley before it, this one has 120mm of travel that uses the Dave Weagle-designed dw-link suspension system. That's where the similarities end, however, with Ibis making some drastic changes compared to all three previous models. The most notable of these was ditching the eccentric "links" for actual links, a change that's said to make the bike much stiffer laterally while dropping a good amount of weight.


''The new one stays progressive the whole way. I think it feels more forgiving because it doesn't use up the middle of its travel so easily.'' Despite those changes, as well as moving to a metric-sized shock, the tune remains the same.

Specifications

There are six complete bike options, starting at $4,099 USD for an NX spec and Fox's Performance suspension. For comparison's sake, that's in the same bike park as Niner's 120mm-travel Jet 9 RDO that costs $4,200 USD with NX running gear, and a Fox 34 Rhythm paired to a Float DPS Performance shock. If you're an Intense fan and want that ego-saving 12-speed Eagle NX, you can pick up an Intense Primer with RockShox's Revelation RC fork and Monarch RL shock for $3,299 USD.

Stumbled upon $9,399 USD? That'll get you my test bike that comes with the new XTR brakes and drivetrain combo'd with Race Face's very light Next R cranks. There's a Factory-level and very gold fork and shock from Fox, and it all rolls on a set of Ibis' house-brand carbon wheels. All that adds up to 26.07lb of nothing-better-go-wrong and nothing-to-upgrade.

Ibis will also let you play with a few different upgrade options, so if you want a set of carbon rims on your entry or mid-level Ripley, you can get 'em for much less than if you bought a set on their own.

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Climbing

There are no surprises here, folks: The fourth-gen Ripley is a bit of a rocketship on the climbs, especially with the relatively light Schwalbe trail bike rubber and carbon wheels that it showed up with. Of course, Ibis would have to have been smoking from the pipe to sacrifice the Ripley's well-known ascending abilities to gain some descending prowess, right? Actually, not so much, with most company's newest trail bikes doing exactly that in recent years.

And as they should - modern short-travel bikes are insanely capable - but ya'll are the ones smoking something if you think it hasn't come at a (usually worthwhile) price.

So yeah, the new Ripley climbs, but let's parse this down to see what the changes mean on the trail. First up, is it still an ultra-efficient climber?

Yes... Ish. Mostly yes. With 120mm of travel and dw-link suspension, it's still fast and full of life. But it took precisely one ride to note that the bike feels more forgiving, and maybe just a hint more active, than the previous version. While the suspension curve went from progressive (ramping up) to regressive in the middle before going back to progressive on the old bike, the new bike's curve is consistently progressive through all of its travel. I suspect that what I'm not feeling is that bump up in progressivity that the old bike had. Either way, there's been a change; seated climbing is smoother and while it's still efficient and quick, the bike doesn't feel quite as tense and ready to jump forward at the slightest quiver of a quad muscle.

The geometry has changed drastically, but the bike still delivers gobs of traction and a front-end that doesn't feel light regardless of how steep the pitch might be. It makes for a bike that wants you to drop one more cog so you can drop your buddies, or to try that seemingly impossible climb a few times because, well, you never know.

Bottom line time: is the new Ripley a better climber than its predecessor? That's a 'no' from me, but don't get me wrong—it's still a weapon on the ups, especially compared to many of today's bloated and overbuilt trail bikes. In fact, this very rig just finished the BC Bike Race under PB's Content Manager, Sarah Moore. That said, the changes definitely give the Ripley more of an all-around bike persona, and it'll likely appeal to more riders than ever because of that fact.

Descending

Let's be real here: I doubt anyone who bought one of the previous versions of the Ripley did so because of the bike's descending prowess. Sure, they've always been fun short-travel bikes, but if the terrain was rowdy or the rider wanted to be in the air fairly often, they probably ended up on a Kona or Transition or the like. And especially if they cared a lot more about coming back down than going up. You know, something a bit less, er, dentist-y.

But has that changed now that Ibis' trail bike has more contemporary numbers? You betcha.

If you've ever spent a Saturday night practicing e-brake turns at the local roundabout, you might already know that your little two-door hatchback is far more likely to spin than a big ol' boat. The same thing applies to bikes, but minus the e-brake and roundabout and likely the police. The new Ripley's longer wheelbase gives it a sense of calmness that the old bike never had, especially when traction is iffy and you're just trying to keep the back of the bike behind you. It's also much more at home in the steeps for the same reason. A bit less e-brake might help, too, but that'd be less fun.




That stability hasn't taken a ton away from the Ripley's fun-loving attitude - this bike is still far more jetski than ocean liner - but there has certainly has been a price. It still wants to hunt down those silly lines and natural gaps that add time rather than save it, but it's a bit more subdued about it while also being more capable, if that makes any sense. You're probably a bit less likely to be pulling a long, smooth manual through a set of compressions, but that's only because you're probably jumping over all them on the new bike. Different, but still fun.

I know that bro-science has proven how anything newer has to be stiffer, but I have to admit that I couldn't feel much of a difference on that front between the new and old bikes. They've never been the stiffest feeling things, but that's not what I'd want anyway. It sure does corner with less drama, though; more wheelbase and better suspension will do that.

The new geometry and tweaked suspension make this Ripley far easier to ride at your limits than the previous versions, and it just feels far less nervous and on edge anywhere and everywhere. Just as importantly, it doesn't have that overgrown, over-slacked trail bike vibe to it that's becoming more and more prevalent. The package is more capable on the descents, though, and the very large majority of potential Ripley owners will be very happy about that.

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Technical Report

Bottom Bracket Battles: Four months and two Race Face bottom brackets isn't a good ratio. The first one let me know it was cooked by ticking so loud and hard that I could feel it through the bottom of my shoes after just a few months of use in mixed conditions. The second one bit the dust halfway through this year's kinda damp but not muddy BC Bike Race. I probably wouldn't be too happy if I'd spent over $9,000 USD on this bike sixteen weeks ago.

Wheel and Tire Combo: The Ripley's wheel and tire combo is perfect for its intentions as a fast-moving trail bike, and while the casings aren't exactly ideal for a ton of pointy rocks, I haven't had a single flat tire. The carbon rims are Ibis' house brand, sure, but they're also some of my favourites. They're not cheap (a wheelset is $1,799 USD on its own) or crazy light, but they are reliable and feel great on the trail. I9's hubs are nice, too, and I'm a fan of the very loud Hydra clutch.

XTR After 4 Months: Shimano's new XTR (minus the cranks and rear hub) shifts as well as you could ever hope a mechanical group to shift, and as Kazimer has already mentioned, it's especially impressive under high pedaling loads. You can do loaded shifts on any decent drivetrain, of course, but it usually feels like you're pulling things apart in the process. With the new XTR, it's relatively smooth.

Things weren't perfect, however. I somehow managed to snap the derailleur's well-protected clutch lever off; it may have been a just-right fluke of an impact, but maybe it shouldn't be made of plastic on a $260 derailleur. Also, the black anodizing on the top group of cogs is wearing off in a way that makes it look quite cheap, but that's purely cosmetic. On top of that, the Ripley's XTR rear brake caliper just started suffering from a single sticky piston, so it's not feeling so hot right now. Stay tuned for an XTR versus AXS long-term review video at some point soon-ish.

Other Mentionables: The BikeYoke dropper was flawless. The downtube protector has started to peel away from the frame a bit, and there's a bunch of dirt and leaves stuck under it now. If Fox made a 34 with a Grip2 damper (they'll surely offer one soon), this bike would deserve it. That said, the FIT4-equipped 34 works just fine, and lockouts are silly but its three-position compression switch does make sense on a bike like the Ripley. I guess.

How does it compare?

The first comparison that comes to mind is Giant's Trance Advanced 29, a 115mm-travel misfit of a bike with similar-ish angles and intentions but an arguably more aggressive spec. As always, both would be equally capable descenders in the right hands, but the Trance's DVO suspension, Minion rubber, and 800mm handlebar do make it a bit more of a brawler out of the box. That said, I think I'd reach for the Ripley if I wanted to cover a lot of ground and have some fun while doing it.

Norco's 120mm-travel Revolver is all-new for 2020 and while the travel numbers are the same, the two feel quite different on the trail. When I'm on the Ripley, it's 50/50 as to whether I want to pedal hard and do some intervals or just coast and do some skids. But when I'm on the Revolver, it's nose to the grindstone most of the time.

Is this the bike for you?

Ibis' drastic changes to the Ripley's geometry were needed if they wanted to stay on-point, but it's still a fast-moving, nimble trail bike that best rewards smoothness and skill over blind courage. If that sounds like how you do things, and often during a long day in the saddle, then Ibis' latest Ripley would be a good one to have on your shortlist. This one's pretty much a no-brainer, too: it ain't the bike for you if you're more into clearing good-sized gaps than good-sized climbs.

Pinkbike's Take

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Posted In:
Reviews and Tech Reviews Trail Bikes XC Bikes Ibis Ibis Ripley Mike Levy Downcountry