Ibis

Ripley Deore Mountain Bike

Awesome bike!

Familiarity:

I've put it through the wringer

Size Bought:

Large

Height:

5' 9"

Weight:

160

Buying through Backcountry: Very pleased with my experience with Backcountry. Prompt delivery: bike arrived securely packaged, with just the handlebars to attach. With a torque wrench anyone can ?assemble? these bikes. Gears and brakes were set up perfectly for a first ride. Local bike shops here have added a significant mark-up on most bikes, which is disappointing. Backcountry uses the RRP shown on the Ibis website. By becoming a member, I now have 15% discount coupon, and it appears I have accrued 25,000 reward points (pending) which I may be able to use to buy upgrades/kit/tools. After-sales service has also been excellent, and I?m very grateful to have had very rapid responses to questions from my personal Gearhead?Veronica?even through the busy Christmas period. Many thanks to the Backcountry team: I would highly recommend Backcountry for bike purchases. As for the bike? There a plenty of detailed reviews for this bike, so I?ll stick to key aspects. I?m coming from a lightweight XC hardtail, and enjoy challenging climbs and flowing descents with modest jumps, gaps, or drops. The scale of features I can manage has now greatly increased on this bike. The frame, shock, and fork are the same across the spec range, so although not cheap, the Deore level bike is pretty good value, including compared to most other in-store brands. Deore components work great; they?re just a bit heavy. The size Large is a good fit for my height (~178 cm with mtb shoes) and riding style (XC). The reach is quite long, but the stack is short compared to a lot of other bikes. The riding position is particularly good for seated climbs, but the short seat tube and long-travel dropper gives free movement around the saddle. In case it?s useful for sizing the RAD (BB to bar), is ~830 mm for this bike (with the stock 50 mm stem and bar). For me, the RAD would be ideally ~10-15 mm shorter, but I could remedy that with a shorter (30-35 mm) stem. The shock and fork are both Fox Factory, with the fork benefitting from a Grip2 damper. In terms of efficiency, I haven?t found a need for the shock lock-out switch yet. The manufacturer settings were a good place to start, but after a few weeks I?m still fine tuning. I?m finding it easy to overwhelm the travel on chunkier trails. This isn?t a complaint, given those trails are all labelled as ?downhill?. Long term it?ll probably be worth exploring additional volume spacers to keep the plush small-bump control, whilst reducing the tendency to bottom-out. The Deore drivetrain and brakes have been great, but I have switched out some components. In particular, and for anyone thinking about doing the same, I?ve swapped out the derailleur and shifter for a SRAM GX AXS shifter and derailleur I already had, but I?ve kept the Deore cassette, crankset, and chain. Shift performance is still great. Better in fact: it's a bit quieter, and I haven?t had to make any changes since original set up and indexing. The only real let down is the dropper lever: it has a lot of play at its axle which means that the cable and lever rubs on the housing making it more difficult to activate. There?s some lateral play in the post, but otherwise the action is smooth. Adjustments for saddle position are very finicky and difficult to get right. In short though, I would strongly recommend the Ibis Ripley Deore build, as a cross country / trail bike that excels at climbs and high speed flow. It is sufficiently planted for my local trails, and has let me expand into trail segments I hadn?t tried before. The geometry is a good balance for climbs and descent, and the price point (again, not cheap) and rewards provided through Backcountry will have left me enough in reserve to change components over time to tailor the bike to a more personal fit.