ION Welcomes Nico Vink, Bienvenido Aguado and Dillon Butcher

Mar 15, 2023 at 4:03

by ION Surfing Trails

NEW ION FAMILY MEMBERS

We‘re beyond stoked to introduce you some additional ION family members for 2023:
Nico Vink, Bienvenido Aguado and Dillon Butcher.

The partnership with the athletes sees a sponsorship to support the athletes in their careers as professional mountain bike riders and further to work on exciting brand projects, which will be announced later in the year. Last but not least we are stoked to partner with WERIDE MTB Tours to promote mountain biking in Portugal.

Welcome to the team and let‘s get the show started!

Nico Vink, DH and freeride legend from Belgium:
The myth, the true boss of the bikes: Nico Vink the Belgium legend itself is joining the ION Bike Family.
From being part of the Downhill circuit for more than a decade, to bringing his own style to the Redbull Rampage and eventually becoming one of the Freeride pioneers. Nico is the founder of world known Fest Series and one of the best trail builders in the world. His effortless style and unique creations brought influence in the MTB world like no other! If you have had the chance to ride a track made by Nico, you know the magic. We are stoked to join this wild journey of Nico and support him with footwear and body armor for his unique kind of riding and/or creative track building! The cherry on the cake is that Nico will now take a key support role in ION’s body armor product development process to bring his vision to some very exciting products, coming soon. Welcome Nico.

Bienvenido Aguado, real whizz-kid launching rockets from Spain:
New addition to the ION Family is the frontflip machine from Barcelona, Mr Bienvenido Aguado. With one of the most consistent slopestyle and dirt jump careers, Bienvenido is now focusing more on freeride events such as Dark Fest, Audi Nines, Proving Grounds and more. We are pumped to support Bienvenido with our protection gear and full range of helmets. We cannot wait to show you more of his upcoming projects. Welcome to the team and enjoy his welcoming clip, made in Mexico.

Dillon Butcher, the rising gun from Vancouver Island, Canada:
After a successful start within our North American Team roster, we are super stoked to introduce Dillon Butcher in the International ION Family. Dillon is a versatile talent from Vancouver Island, BC that shreds any kind of bike you put him on. Simply enjoy his welcome to the team edit, it speaks for itself.

All updated rider profiles of the ION International Team can be found under this link: Rider Profiles here!

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36 Comments

42 3

t-swing (Mar 15, 2023 at 14:33)

yo nico, this is too much coverage.

KeithShred (Mar 15, 2023 at 20:47)

Hahahaha

19 0

chriss78 (Mar 15, 2023 at 12:46)

Cool move, but Vink & high top VANS have always been a killer combination.

11 2

threesixtykickflip (Mar 15, 2023 at 15:01)

..As is ankle Socks and Asics \m/

KeithShred (Mar 15, 2023 at 20:47)

@threesixtykickflip: wat

DuelingBanjos (Mar 16, 2023 at 15:10)

@KeithShred: Watts

17 3

TrevZ (Mar 15, 2023 at 16:11)

PB you guys should publish an article with fake names and a fake bike business and see if you get the same number of clicks. I want to see 'TRX signs Antoine Rotale, Cory Veitanger" or something like that because it's no less interesting than this kind of thing.

RonSauce (Mar 15, 2023 at 18:58)

Antoine was my favorite rider on YKYK. Never heard of Cary Verlander though

KeithShred (Mar 15, 2023 at 20:50)

@RonSauce: Andrew WK

highseat (Mar 15, 2023 at 22:16)

I wonder who Randy is riding for these days?

lehott (Mar 16, 2023 at 7:14)

@highseat: your mom

nyhc00 (Mar 16, 2023 at 8:24)

Fake Business is the move.

13 0

hubertje-ryu (Mar 15, 2023 at 13:04)

What is ION?

And, true, Belgium is a legend. It doesn't exist.

snokarver (Mar 15, 2023 at 15:29)

Their description says "We are engineered in Germany, offers premium technical products with a progressive design fueled by stoke and spiced with radness!"

A Google search for Ion Germany shows a bunch of results that aren't it.

g-42 (Mar 15, 2023 at 15:48)

@snokarver: ION is the soft goods brand for Boards & More, a European (incorporated in Austria, I believe) conglomerate that originated from a few folks getting together and consolidating some of the big windsurfing brands back in the day (Mistral, F2, North Windsurfing - later rebranded Duotone, etc.) They made a pretty aggressive move into MTB products a few years back. And being from a German market, their English language ad/marketing copy tended to be a bit funky (as a native German, to me it always sounded like someone took German text and translated it rather than having it re-written by a native English speaker) - although that seems to have gotten better (or less hilariously bad) in recent year.

DDoc (Mar 15, 2023 at 19:05)

@g-42: Very good description. Besides the graphics, they make very well designed products. Think Nico is exteeme and gets big air? Haha sure he is amazing but for comparison google "Airton king of the air". Good luck guys.

billythegerbil (Mar 15, 2023 at 23:32)

They make excellent knee pads. Derived from a surf/wet suit back ground I recall

korev (Mar 16, 2023 at 1:17)

@billythegerbil: I had some and they were awful. I chucked them in a bin in Nauders before paying well over the odds for a pair of POC ones...

tremeer023 (Mar 16, 2023 at 1:31)

@billythegerbil: I use their lightweight 'dude' gloves for summer riding. Comfy and minimalist, and are holding up well for such a thin glove actually.

g-42 (Mar 16, 2023 at 12:09)

@DDoc: I think Nico's become known more and more for organizing big events and building big lines rather than just his own airtime on a bike. When Transition built Blue Steel here in Bellingham, they brought him in to get it designed and built, and promoted the hell out of it with video showing him shaping all these gorgeous jumps with an excavator.

foggnm (Mar 16, 2023 at 13:25)

My two pairs of ion shorts probably have over 5000 miles each on them and they've held up really well. The one pair that got a hole from a crash has an iron-on patch and continues to be used. I do have a pair I bought more recently of their stuff that I wasn't thrilled with (material was too rough). I like that they make shorts for people that actually have muscles on their legs.