We’re happy to report that Brian Lopes, riding a Mojo HD, won yesterday’s AirDH race on the world famous A-Line Downhill course up in Whistler.

There’s a bit more to the story.

A few years ago our very good mutual friend from Oakley, Steve Blick, played matchmaker and put Brian in touch with us to talk about a possible sponsorship. I knew Brian before this, having fun at Blick’s wedding in Hawaii, running into him on the trail in Laguna Beach (where my brother lives) and seeing him at various shows and bike events.  Honestly though, sponsoring him hadn’t been on my radar. We soon put together a deal and all has been peachy since then. Brian has continued to win a lot of races and helped us tremendously with our product development and keeping our name out there in the spotlight.

Yesterday’s win was a really big deal. The best guys in the world were there. Look at the podium shot below, that’s Gee Atherton (as in the ex downhill world champ Gee Atherton) wondering how that old guy managed to beat him…Yesterday was also the 5th birthday of Tyler Blick, Steve’s first child. A couple of weeks ago Steve and his wife Jen found out that Tyler has Leukemia. Brian wrote Tyler’s name on his number plate and dedicated the race to him, then went on to DOMINATE the race, beating his winning time of last year by 5 seconds! As you can see, it was a day of 5’s. Ty’s 5th birthday. 5th consecutive race. 5 seconds over last years time. And BL’s usual number is 55.

So today we celebrate Tyler’s birthday, we celebrate Brian’s win and we celebrate life in general.

Here is the lowdown on Brian’s A-line race winning rig:

Rider           Brian Lopes
Bike            Ibis HD
Headset         Chris King Taper Head set 44mm top/1.5″ lower cup

Fork            2010 Marzocchi 55 Micro Ti
Rear shock      2010 Marzocchi coil TSTR coil with 350 ti spring

Handlebar       Edge riser 710 Carbon bar
Grips           Odi MTB “O” Grips secured with saftey wire
Saddle          WTB SL55 white Brian Lopes signature edition

Chain Guide     MRP Brian Lopes signature edition “Chain Guarde” chain guide

Crank           Tru Vative Stylo OCT w/Black Box ceramic BB
Gearing         11-26 10s Force Cassete, MRP 38t podium chainring
Rear Der.       Sram Force short cage Road Der. 10s
Shifting                Sram XO 10s rear shifter
Chain           Sram 1091r chain
Brakes          2011 Avid Code with 2 piece XX 185 rotors
Pedals          Crank Bros Mallet 2
Wheels          Edge All Mountain carbon rims laced to Chris King hubs

Tires           Kenda prototype BBG Brian Lopes Signature Series 2.35 front, Kenda prototype Small Block 8 with race tread cut 2.35 rear

Photo by Rob Trna

If you’re not one of the 1.6 million people who have already watched this, here you go and you’re welcome. It’s a time lapse video of a guy walking across the country.

A while ago I drove my ancient Ford pickup out to Utah. Looking for something to do I put my crappy little point and shoot on the dash board and made my own time lapse. The tunnel gives you an idea of speed.

And in the spirit of long journeys across nothingness, here’s a blog by a guy walking across the country.
Click on the image, which just shows Montana. Each placemarker on the image links to a picture.

We can file this one under ‘doing the right thing’.

We’ve teamed up with some of our friends and family in the South Bay Area (South of San Francisco we mean) and have donated a Tranny Bicycle (your choice of size and color) to benefit the good people at OrphanBaby. They are a non-profit group dedicated to improving the lives of orphans. The website for the benefit is www.rideforplay.com and you can also see the flyer before.

The benefit, though very serious, should prove to be a lot of fun. The main event will be a poker run on mountain bikes followed by a BBQ on July 17th in Los Gatos CA. Even if you’re not at the event, you can purchase a raffle ticket to be eligible for some of the prizes, including the grand prize which is an Ibis Tranny. There are a lot of other prizes too. Read all about it here and click on the image to download a flyer.

You can always tell a lot about the popularity of an event by how fast it sells out. Among the most coveted events that we know about is the All Mountain Race at the Downieville Classic. It usually sells out in minutes.
We’re big fans and big supporters of this race, of Downieville, and of the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship who keeps the trails up around Downieville open and maintained. The Classic is one of the best events on the calendar every year.
As sponsors of the event,we get two entries into the Downieville Classic All-Mountain World Championships. We gave one of our employees one of our entries this year, and have another one to use. So we’re going to offer it to you. Tell us in a reasonably brief manner why you you think you’re the one who should get the entry. Make it truthful if you want, or you can make it outrageous. Maybe best if it’s truthful AND outrageous. Tell us a sob story if you want, or a funny story. We don’t care what type of story you send. And in fact, we don’t really know what we’re looking for. We’ll know it when we see it though. We will pick a winner by noon on Monday July 5th and let you know by email.

Simply send your brief missive into askchuck at ibiscycles dot com and we’ll take it from there. Pictures are welcome.

You still get to pay for the entry to the race, it’s $185. But if you’ve been looking for an in on an entry, this is your chance.

We’d like you to be an Ibis rider, but if you’re not, we’ll still consider you. We won’t play favorites.

Did I forget anything? Hope not.

GOOD LUCK, and see you in Downieville!

This year we’re dramatically curtailing our presence at Interbike while at the same time increasing our presence elsewhere, and this should be good news if you want to ride one of our bikes. We’re smack dab in the middle of our Demo Tour right now, and we’ll be continuing this into October.

There are two Mountain Bike Oregon events we’ll attend. We’re contemplating Crankworx Whistler. And there are a bunch of other good things that are almost on the schedule, pending a few details.
One of many events we’re excited about, and one that we’re definitely going to attend is Outerbike, which takes place the week after Interbike. Outerbike is in Moab though, not Vegas. Unlike Vegas, it’s open to the public, and also unlike Vegas, it’s 100% focused on riding bikes rather than merely talking about them. And finally, being the week after Interbike in Vegas, this will give you the opportunity to ride all the latest and greatest bikes from a bunch of different manufacturers, including us.
We’re hoping to put together some special Ibis events in conjunction with the demo, yet to be determined. So stay tuned. We know you will.