Well it’s almost old news now. I mean, we leaked the info to our distributors last night, and before we woke up this morning, Europe and Asia knew all about it.

I’m talking about our new colloaboration with Brian Lopes, four time World Champion and he currently wears the stripes in the 4X discipline.
Rather than cobble together some words and poorly describe what is happening, I thought I’d just let the pro do the talking. This is what Sal Ruibal had to say, and according to me, he’s one of the most important journalists in the world. That’s because Sal cares, Sal works at USA Today, and Sal tells the teeming masses about cycling.

Here we go

Beauty and the Beast
Sal Ruibal

Beauty (Ibis Mojo Sl, top) meets the Beast (Brian Lopes).
Brian Lopes is the best all-around bike rider in the world. He rules the 4X and dual slalom world and could probably kick buttocks on the XC circuit if he set his mind to it.
On banked and bermed tracks, there’s no one who can catch him. In a road sprint, look out Boonen and Cipollini, he’s on your wheel. He can freeride like a Canadian on fire and hop over picnic tables like like a kangaroo on caffeine.
He’s known for gnarly and well-earned bravado. He even swaggers in his sleep.
So that’s why I was set aback to hear from Mr. Lopes that he was switching from longtime bike sponsor GT to Ibis, a brand known for exquisitely crafted bicycles that are so beautiful that many are on living room walls instead of bike racks. The back-order wait is longer than getting a green card in El Paso.
But Lopes can ride whatever he wants and he wants Ibis. It is hard for me to visualize Lopes bombing down the 4X course, swapping paint with the rough trade and exposing all that wonderful, curvaceous carbon to mud and rocks.
He’ll start his Ibis era with the scrumptious MojoSL, a full-suspension carbon machine better known for sculpting lines on singletrack trails than bashing miscreants hubs-over-head in 4X. It just looks too pretty for the sport.
When the super-stiff Ibis Tranny hardtail debuts later this year, Lopes will be more in his element. Full power transfer and explosive sprinting will rule the day.
Brian Lopes will just keep on winning, but now he’ll look cool while he does it.

Holy Smokes Sal, that was some intro, thanks!

More on this in the coming days and weeks.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Scot?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.