My mountain bikes have suffered a bit as of late, with my Whyte 46 out of action thanks to a knackered rear shock, and the Cove Stiffee seatpin and saddle-less since the departure of its overweight and underused sibling with whom they were shared. The Whyte is set to be replaced with something more 2011 (the Ibis Mojo HD), and the family will shortly be joined by a sprightly young carbon Whyte 19C, but the Cove deserves more than mere dust gathering, so I’ve recently made the effort to return it to trail readiness.

At 6ft2, a 17.5″ mountain bike is never going to pedal particularly fast, but when I first (over)built it up, the Stiffee was a total pig. I have since managed to shed some of the weight, with lighter wheels, tyres, etc. Yesterday I stuck an ageing Flite (a Marco Pantani signature Flite no less) on a new Thompson seatpost, and swapped some lighter bars and stem over, replacing the Hussefelt ones which must be hewn out of mild steel. I’ve still got to swap the Hussefelt cranks and BB, which when replaced with XT should drop things another pound at least. This is all very boring anyway. Who cares about heavy cranks. Zzzzz.

Right. So fitted with the new bits and bobs Alex and I headed out for an exploratory ride from his new place in Crundale, situated at the foot of the North Downs near Wye. The going was moist to say the least, and neither of us were sporting particularly suitable tyres. Still, we managed to piece together a decent enough loop. Mainly low tech XC, but with mud-clogged tyres it sometimes took a bit of effort to stay upright. The Cove wasn’t an enjoyable ride uphill, but at least it could go uphill. Unlike when it made its debut at Coed Llandegla – I ended up in some sort of hypoventilatory exhaustion fit that had the others assuming that I’d prepared for the weekend by preceding it with a five day bourbon and crack marathon. Ahh, but those were the days…

We did manage to find some nice little lines down through the trees though, and also an amusing little quarry. With fading light and an appointment with a fry up, we didn’t linger long. We had planned to push north west into King’s Wood above Godmersham, but in the end we cut through along a bridleway via Chilham and back to Crundale. King’s Wood reputedly sports a few more established trails, so we’ll try that out next time. Hopefully I should be on the carbon speed machine then, and the Cove will hopefully get to return to its favoured habitat – mini DH trails – if I get the nod from Piers. After a few months of riding solely on the road I’m expecting to get brought back down to earth fairly fast…

Ibis make very tasty carbon bikes. I think they’ve been around for quite a few years, but they only came to my attention recently when I heard about the original 140mm Mojo. This tough trail-suited five incher manufactured from beautifully sculpted carbon weighed a paltry 6lb and immediately jumped to the top of my most wanted list.

Since then, Ibis have also added the superlight Mojo SL, a superlight hardtail called the Tranny, a lovely looking cyclocross bike (the Hakkalügi) and, most recently, the longer travel Ibis Mojo HD.

This frame, suited to forks with 160 – 180mm of travel promises to build up into an awesome all mountain machine. Frame weight is a scant 6.3lb. 160mm of rear travel comes courtesy of a DW-link setup – arguably the most efficient pedalling platform for longer travel bike designs. The wheelbase is a touch longer than my Whyte, but not as long as a Nicolai Helius AM or an Intense Slopestyle. The head angle is 67deg, although this would slacken to 66 with a 180mm fork. Play bikes are being specced with slacker and  slacker angles, but I think anything below 66 is pushing it for a really versatile all mountain ride.

The Mojo HD could be built into something devilishly light – Fox 36 Floats, light wheels, 1×10 gearing, etc. Or a tough Alpine-ready machine – coil forks, coil rear shock (previously not recommended, but now Ibis are suggesting the Fox DHX RC4 would be fine, thanks to its ability to have dialled in bottom-out resistance), dual ply tyres, etc.

It’s the carbon that makes it, and for a lot of people it might be the carbon that breaks it. The Mojo HD is supposed to be super tough, but I can imagine that there are a lot of potential customers who might be finding the concept of a carbon all mountain bike quite hard to swallow. However, with more and more carbon coming onto the market, especially from Santa Cruz with the Nomad and V10, I think there are a lot of other people who are convinced that this is the future.

As far as I’m concerned, it is. Having spent some time musing over these various choices (as well as admiring the images below) the Mojo HD is definitely the natural successor to my Whyte. It has the potential to be so much lighter than the competition, whilst still retaining a tough, all mountain readiness. I think my mind is made up…