VonFalkenhausen

Unfortunately with their suspension design it greatly complicates production when you need a different set of molds for the one piece swingarm in each size.

@FaahkEet: Mezzer FTW.

@MattyRides: Nothing is wrong with bushings when you use them to replace bearings in places bearing don't work well, which is exactly what Ibis does. They use big durable bushings at the lower link that doesn't have enough rotation to allow bearings to function correctly. And bearings on the upper link where they do. They will give you new bushings for the lower link if they are ever needed, and they will sell you the upper link with new bearings already installed for a reasonable price because it's a service part that you will need. It's a good, customer friendly design.

@FatTonyNJ: Indeed. She has skin in the game, and Ibis has unique looking bikes that work great, are reliable and easy to service. Their customer loyalty is well earned. Not everyone likes the straight lines only approach, and Ibis/Roxy are some of the true innovators behind what has become the industry standard formula for high end bikes. Personally, and probably because of my age and at least somewhat because I am an admitted Ibis fan from way back, I find Santa Cruz bikes somewhat ugly because of their heavy handed lack of curves. And companies like Revel have shown that it is possible to design pretty bikes with lots of straight lines. I do expect this prototype's return to overlap between the front and rear triangles to bode well for a nice looking bike, and even though I understand why they changed it, the original Ripley will always look better to me than the current Ripmo/Ripley/Exie style. Anyway, it's all subjective and the priority will always be function, but beauty is still a nice attribute and Ibis bikes look just fine to me.

Yup, every time. I didn't even notice the top tube, then when I hit the comments I was like WTF is all this pearl clutching about and scrolled back up to the pictures. Bike looks fine, if anything it's nice to see a hardtail that isn't the same as so many others. Maybe I'm just used to looking at Ibis bikes but I definitely don't see a problem with the top tube shape.

@wburnes: That's actually an even closer comparison, I went with slightly beefier tires and Rimpact inserts.

@kanioni: Bro, don't introduce facts to mess up my justification method for spending extra money on my bike.

That's pretty close to how I justified going with Berd spokes on my latest build. No regrets.

Lol. It's just the end of a regular spoke, but that's not the hard part. Go ahead and give it a shot. Good luck with that.

@Thendeb: Ride faster.