From XC to Steep Tech: a Ripmo AF Long Term Review
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ก.ค. 2024
- When running one bike in diverse environments it's hard to imagine it doing a great job in any of them. After a year of upgrades and experiments on the Ibis Ripmo AF, can it handle my demands as both an XC/Trail bike and a big mountain bruiser?
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Wow. I just randomly clicked on this hoping for a little insight on how to balance a one bike enduro/xc rig and was not prepared for the quality of review here. Great job man this is excellent.
Excellent video, i appreciate you rambling about the ripmo... there's so much to talk about with this bike. I'd even love to hear a round 2 rambling when you have even more thoughts
I appreciate that! But it's unlikely that I'll talk that much more about the Ripmo AF. As I stated in the video I was looking for (and found) a lightweight trail bike for riding in town. Now that I don't need the Ripmo AF to be a "do it all" bike, I can just let it be an all mountain bike, which it's VERY good at, especially with the upgrades I've made (and continue to make)!
That said, I'm sure you haven't seen the last of it on the channel, I'm hoping to do a few more riding videos next season so you can actually see it in action!
Being overbiked (quite easy to do these days) on local trails can hugely spoil the fun of MTB. I was also in the same situation so I know this pain :D Keep shredding on new trail bike and please give us a meaningful and informative review as always!
Good to see another video from you! I enjoyed the previous one as well. I ended up picking an Exie for my XC riding. Running my Ripmo with a Jade X coil and a Fox 38 and my Exie with the stock Fox 34 SC has given me the perfect range of bikes for the riding I do in Colorado. It's really interesting to see how you've made the Ripmo function across riding styles.
It's been a fun project bike for sure, that said, I wish it didn't have to be haha! Had the ripley just been progressive enough to handle my more aggressive style of xc riding, I could focus the ripmo more on bigger terrain. But here we are, looking for excuses to buy more bikes haha.
The exie is such a rad bike, but as much as I love to push the pedals, I know that I'm really a trail bike guy at heart, a true xc bike would inevitably leave me wanting more capability.
Thanks for the review, great to see other setups with comprehensive explanations.
I noticed the same things as you on my Ripmo AF, main issues is bottom outs, pedal strikes, cockpit setup and not great stock rims (already wrecked 3). I mainly ride park in the Ottawa region and around Quebec, my setup is enduro. Changes to the bike are 165mm cranks, 35mm stem, 35mm rise carbon bar, DD casing tires Assegai and DHR2 cushcore front and back. The cascade link is on my list of upgrades for this winter. Current fork is a Bomber Z1 coil and considering the fox 38, it would be stiffer better tuning and shave some weight.
Nice rig! Maybe look into the mezzer as well, I really like the 38, but you can get the mezzer for quote a good deal at the moment and the weight is even better than the 38. Full disclosure, I haven't ridden one, but people who have are, if nothing else, really loud about it.
nice vid. I put a cascade linkage on mine this summer and it's been such a difference not struggling with blowing through travel.
It's a game changer for sure! Out of curiosity, what shock are you running? Did you have a similar experience where you found the small bump suffered after the install and had to make changes to your volume reducer set up or compression settings?
@@casestudymtb DVO Topaz that came stock- I had been running 3 positive 2 negative but I've backed that off to 2 and 1, which I believe is what it came with. I'm still playing around a bit there. I almost always just leave the compression open since I never remember to change it back, and I ride my hardtail if it's a truly XC day
It would be so awesome if Ibis did something like the Ride9 system the Rocky Mountain Altitude has, with a full degree of adjustability on the head angle. I have a ripmo and like it so far, but sometimes I wish I could just flip a chip and get a little more slack or steep.
Don't tell Ibis but I'm going to be riding it with a 170 fork next season, I'm very curious to see how far the extra half a degree of slackness pushes the bikes capability. Who knows? I may even look for a half degree or 1 degree angle set.
Great LT review, if you are interested have you tried a modern aggressive hardtail in YEG? If you want I have a Ragley Blue Pig (Sm) that you can try out. I it find solid for the trails here as well as being fun for jumps. My main plans this winter are getting a set of XC/Trail tires and shorter cranks. Next year I'm planning on bringing it to the mountains to see how it does and decide if I should build a full-sus for that and keep the HT for the city and friends.
I really appreciate that offer! But as much as I'm not that old, I have the ankles of an 80 years old (my doctors words). When it comes to rigid bikes, I prefer to push the gravel angle over an aggressive hardtail. I've just come to appreciate the kindness suspension affords my ankles too much!
This is an interesting video, especially contrasting to your previous experience with the Ripley. I've got a 2018 YT Jeffsy I'm considering swapping for a Ripley, and I'm seeing a lot of the same points I've noticed with my Jeffsy vs demoing short travel trail bikes. It's a great bike for DH, but that point about not wanting to "charge the flats" kinda sticks with me. A lot of my trails don't require a 150/150 bike, so it's hard to justify all the extra heft when a 130/120 or similar would be plenty.
If it helps, I ordered an Izzo core 4 and have been riding it for a couple weeks. I wish I could be more concrete about my feelings on it, but I like it more than the Ripley AF in some ways and far less in others. That said, I do see myself sticking with it for at least as long as I did the Ripley AF. if not longer, great bike for my XC terrain
@@casestudymtb Ah sweet! Yeah they're an often compared duo, I think the brands land on either end of the priority spectrum (YT has often focused on DH and aggressive trail riding performance where Ibis has often focused on pedaling efficiency and overall performance).
@casestudymtb not enough izzo insight on TH-cam people would probably enjoy it. I'm a bike dork and am on my second izzo build. Didn't like the dps rode a rockshox uncaged 7 build and love it. I take it to wherever my long travel bike is mid travel extreme geo and not a good climber so it's less appreciated by me as i like climbing so much.
@casestudymtb not enough izzo insight on TH-cam people would probably enjoy it. I'm a bike dork and am on my second izzo build. Didn't like the dps rode a rockshox uncaged 7 build and love it. I take it to wherever my long travel bike is mid travel extreme geo and not a good climber so it's less appreciated by me as i like climbing so much.
@@casestudymtb Hi! Enjoyed your video. I’ve got a 2020 Izzo pro that I’ve put thousands of miles on, and completed some similar shifts to be able to handle bigger terrain and the Funduro series here in Ohio. Bought my buddy’s 2021 AF from him and have it waiting in a box as I fly home from a trip. I am really looking forward to having, for first time, two bikes to work with and use them for intended purposes. Like you, but in reverse, I am SUPER STOKED, to return my Izzo back to a lightweight “down country”bike where I can charge the local trails…so much more fun than when it’s beefed up. And pulling out the AF when I want to ride more park and heavy and jump style, and race!
It will be interesting to see how much difference I’ll feel…but I suspect same as you just described in video.
Funny we got same bikes in opposite order. 🤓
I tinkered with ibis "traction tune" setup vs dvo setup is quite different. Im leaning more towards DVO recommendations. Im on a small AF 160lbs in Ontario and would blow through the travel on the topaz on our small bike park we have here. Adding cascade components link madw a huge difference in anti bottom out and progressivity. I wil also add that the taking out a spacer on my onyx SC fork to 170mm makes a noticeable difference. However, ro make this more XC with faster tires and adjusting cockpit is far stretch IMO. Its a great bike but cant be as snappy as short travel bike
I'm not mad about how the ripmo af rides on xc trails with my changes, it's still fun and the lighter tires and shorter cockpit all add to its capability in tighter pedally stuff. Is it an xc bike? No, it's a trail bike, with the same geo you find on much shorter travel trail bikes I might add. So I guess it's a question of how much performance you care to chase when you're only running one bike. For me, the 2 different set ups are 100% worth the minimal effort required to swap between. I'm only running 160 up front, so my bike will definitely handle quite a bit differently than yours, regardless of the set ups, but you might be surprised how much a few change can make the bike feel more at home on xc stuff. It's definitely not a short travel trail bike, so ya, it's not perfect, but I still think it's worth the effort... at least until I have a better option.
@@casestudymtb yes I agree the ripmo is definitely more capable than what it's classified as. I think it's hard to find a bike to do everything very well. What you are doing by tweaking the geo with cockpit adjustments is a great way to make it fit for your trails and riding purpose. Great job!
Hey thanks for sharing your experience and changes that you made to your ripmo , you just gave me some good ideas on how to make my ripmo more fun on the xc trails because honestly I’ve been struggling with that as well but I did want to ask you, do you go 5 mm higher than stock with the 50mm stem for the mountain and than 5mm lower than stock with a 40mm stem for xc trails or do you just go back to stock with a 40mm stem for xc trails ?
I think I was running somewhere around 17.5mm of spacers under the stem for XC rides and 22.5mm for mountain rides, but honestly I don't remember exactly. Since filming I bought a shorter travel trail bike, so my Ripmo is now set up exclusively for descending.
For something like bar height, just experiment. It's an easy trail side change to make, so next XC ride, try a couple more or fewer spacers and see where you land. My testing consisted of running the same trail a couple times with different stems, then, once I found the stem length I liked, I played with bar height. Don't be afraid to make big changes, one of my fastest runs was with my bars as high as they could go, it just didn't feel the most confident to me so I brought them back down to a more comfortable range. It's just like bracketing to get your suspension dialed in.
Aside from that, the only other suggestion I would make would be: play with 2.5mm spacers as well as 5mm. It may seem like it won't make much of a difference, but honestly 1mm of bar height change makes a noticeable difference to your position on the bike.
Hope this helped, and good luck getting it dialed in!
@@casestudymtb thank you very much for all the tips and also for responding, you should continue to do videos
@@borisserrano8361Despite my best efforts to sabotage my channel with wildly inconsistent releases, as well as releasing videos of equally inconsistent quality, I keep getting more subs, so you're probably right, it might be time to make a few more videos this year.
Once you get ur trail bike I would deff recco going to 170 mm up front it pairs really well for Enduro/DH riding with the Cascade link.. I love my Cascade, makes the bike so much more poppy for jumping.. But the 170mm makes it less fun for normal trail riding you notice it right away.. Cheers
Waaaaayyyyy ahead of you haha! I've already got a couple hundred km on my new trail bike and I've since made several upgrades to hone the Ripmo in on downhill performance (Dominion A4's, a longer dropper, higher stack), not least among them was the increase in fork travel. When I bought the 38 it came stock with 170 and I put a 160 air shaft for more of an allrounder feel. Swapping back to 170 is basically free.
I'm still thinking an angle set might be in my future as well but the increased travel was an easy place to start. Bummer that the season is over, I'd love to test it out, but it's something to look forward to for next season.
Great minds something something.
Jagwire brake pads made all the difference on my AF
I always found the XT shimano pads to work pretty well, but it's all moot now, I picked up a pair of Hayes Dominion A4's that I'm extremely excited to test out next season!