Ibis made a magic bullet with the Ripmo when it launched in early 2018. This tangerine-sky-colored beauty was something of a unicorn bike, combining all of the hottest buzzwords: enduro, 29er, reduced offset, water bottle, 2.6” tire, and more. With it they made a mountain bike that could be ridden, and more importantly, loved, by everyone out there. Whether you were short or tall, fast or slow, liked pedaling up-hill or down, it was a bike that captured the world's attention. It was all this, and in fact, still is. The original Ripmo is actively winning accolades, including Enduro Magazine’s 2020 Best Trail Bike of the year - for the second year running.

The Ibis Ripmo V2: The Ripmo, refined.

So how do you improve the best out there?

The good folks at Ibis had to get very nit-picky to improve upon this bike, but in that endeavor, they succeeded. With input from you, their customer, as well as their enduro race team athletes like Robin Wallner, they have taken this bike a hair further into the realm of enduro by decreasing the head angle by a degree - it now sits at 64.9 degrees instead of 65.9. You may argue that this factor is part of what makes the Ripmo so ride-able, so enjoyable by all - but Ibis has got you covered. By using non-integrated headset standards - 44mm and 56mm, upper and lower - you can run an angleset and either bring your head-tube back to 65.9 or drop it down further. For the rest of us, 64.9 makes for a bike that will be tad more confident while descending. It can take a tiny bit more concentration to keep in a straight line while climbing, but I’d be willing to bet that you wouldn’t notice the difference in a blind test (good luck riding a bike while blindfolded!).

A degree slacker head angle, now 64.9, and a few other tweaks make what was an amazing bike even better.

The head-angle change also affects the bike’s wheelbase, which gets longer across the run of sizes. In terms of ride feel, this has a related and complementary effect to decreasing the head angle. A longer bike is more stable at high speeds, but a tad more unwieldy to get around tighter turns. That said, these are both small changes to the bike, and with them Ibis has not changed the nature of the Ripmo… it is still the incredibly fun, sporty, and versatile bike that it always was, just more refined.

How refined?

There are a few other small changes that Ibis has made to bring the Ripmo that much closer to perfection. A number of users noted that they experienced more frequent bottoming than they wanted, and had to reduce the volume in their shocks to make the bike perform properly. Others lamented on the inability to run a coil-sprung shock, which was primarily for the same reason - the frame’s suspension kinematics weren’t innately progressive enough to accommodate a more linear coil spring.

With a more progressive suspension design, the Ibis Ripmo V2 no longer suffers from unwanted bottoming, and is now coil compatible.

To address that, Ibis engineer Andy Jasques-Maynes made the new Ripmo more progressive. That means no more bottoming, and it means you can run a coil shock. Because of the clevis yoke, the options are limited to certain makes/models, but if you are after the reduced friction that a coil shock offers, let us know and we’ll get you sorted.

Other odds and ends include reach measurements (the horizontal distance from the bottom bracket to the head-tube) that have been rounded up slightly. There is a more significant increase in the reach on the size medium frame (up by 14mm) than the other sizes, which go up by less than a centimeter.

Ibis also started spec’ing their frames with two little mud flaps attached to the seat-tube, which keeps debris out of the upper and lower link. Although Ibis includes a lifetime warranty on the bushings that the lower link rotates around, touches like this reduce maintenance intervals to the bare minimum, which we can all appreciate.

Rich, floating above the forest floor on the Ripmo’s DW-link V-5 suspension.

Is it a carbon AF?

The AF took its cues from the original Ripmo, and the new Ripmo took its own from the AF - in short, it is a carbon AF, and we think that’s a good thing. With this bike, Ibis has refined their Ripmo line-up to offer their award-winning, do-it-all bike to everyone. It doesn’t matter if your budget is $3,000 or $10,000, you like climbing vs descending, or if you think coil shocks are the best thing since sliced bread, Ibis has a Ripmo for you. Oh, and if you want a completely custom Ripmo with the exact model of disc brake rotor to color match your valve stem? Just head to our Custom Bike Builder and see what you come up with!

Starship Destroyer Grey and Bug Zapper Blue are the new colorways on the Ripmo V2