HEAD OVER HEELS

THE BIKES THAT STOLE OUR HEARTS

TRAVIS ENGEL

If I were allowed to keep just one bike from this year’s Bible, free of charge, my choice would be the Specialized Enduro. That is the simple criteria we use to pick our Bible favorites, after all. We don’t pick a best-of in each category or build a dream quiver. And we don’t fret over price points. If we were to consider the real-world compromise it’d take to buy one of these bikes on a print journalist’s or freelancer’s salary, it wouldn’t exactly be a ‘favorite’ by our definition. But when I rode the Ibis Ripmo AF (page 64), that word ‘compromise’ never came to mind. The least expensive bike in this year’s bunch, the Ripmo AF is arguably the most versatile. Its linkage is so dialed that the relatively weighty build never bothered me on the climbs. And its geometry and suspension components do enough heavy lifting to run with that Enduro. I found myself utterly floating through the chaos on the Ripmo AF. Not quite like the Enduro, but that’s not the point. For $3,000 from a bike shop, anyone could ride anywhere. Because of how broadly this bike will spread the shred, it is by far my favorite.

MIKE FERRENTINO