I bought this Ibis Ti Mojo frame back in 1996 as my ideal dream always-wanted one bike and have ridden it two or three times every since then. Now it’s dressed up as a pimpy SS but it started life as a 2.9lbs frame/stem and headset. The frame is one of Ibis’s early preproduction test bikes – it was reviewed (complete with with ti-dye spokes) in a couple of USA mags and then went back to them. They stripped it, sold it to me and it’s had a loving home ever since. At first it was a front suspension mean machine coming in at around 22lbs fully built up. Over the years weight dropped off it and having just singlespeeded it, it’s now a paltry 17.5lbs.

The bike is a quick-handling, nippy, lightweight thing, yet having hammered it down the continental divide, raced it, completed enduros on it, raced it in the alps, done the chairlift thing in Crested Butte and worst of all commuted on it, it still rides like it was fresh out the box. The welds are just delicious and it has the stunning KGB dropouts and the infamous Handjob cable stop for cantilevers.

Basically I still feel this bike has a lot of soul – built with love and attention to detail. A bike for life. Well, 11 years and still going!

I remember when I first bought it people thought I was mad spending that much dosh on a bike but I often wonder if the same people are still riding, and loving riding, a bike they bought back then and rode this much. I doubt it.