Ibis Volunteer Raffle Winner Tours Ibis HQ with MBOSC
July 6, 2018
Last week MBOSC staff and Ibis Volunteer Raffle winner, Jessica Lam, visited Ibis Cycles HQ for a behind-the-scenes tour. We were welcomed by Saris Mercanti, their new Marketing Manager. She was previously the Technical Editor at MTBR. Saris warmed us up with her quick wit and charm, as any good tour guide should.
Our first stop was with all-around badass, Roxy Lo, where we learned about her bicycle design process. When one imagines Ibis Cycles, one imagines beautiful design. Roxy designs each size independently, instead of taking the largest size and shrinking it, which is why riders of all sizes will notice the same attention to detail on their Ibis bikes.
We learned that in her past, Roxy designed the first mountain bike specific Camelbak’s (e.g. the MULE) , and also had a big hand in design for our favorite light company, Light and Motion. One of her proudest moments as a designer was seeing a mountain biker wearing a Camelbak while riding an Ibis, with a Light and Motion light on the handlebars… To place a cherry on top, Roxy had just ran to the office from her home in Bonny Doon that morning, a 7 mile jaunt downhill. Roxy is an inspiration!
Next up we met the customer service and warranty guru, Will. Saris introduced him as the “nicest guy at Ibis”, which, she pointed out, is key since he’s in charge of stoking customers out.
One of the more interesting parts of the tour was when we had a chance to learn about quality control processes with Oscar. He showed us how they test each frame to make sure they can withstand pressure and weight without cracking. He encouraged us to help perform one of the QC tests and Jessica did not miss a beat. While we all cringed with fear, Jessica performed an acrobat routine on a brand new Mojo HD4 frame, which remained unaffected by her efforts.
Making our way through the warehouse, we waved hello to Lili Heim, Ibis team pro Enduro racer, who is building bikes at Ibis for the summer, before entering the Ibis Museum, which contains a full spread of Ibis bikes dating back to some of their first ever bikes. We were surprised to see dirt jumpers and even trials frames, meant for charging up big obstacles. From the museum contents, one can tell Ibis Cycles was truly founded by Scot Nicol out of love for the sport. We unanimously voted to bring back the 80’s paint job.
We blasted from the past to the future, by checking out Ibis’ in-house carbon lab, where they're beginning production of size small Ripley frames. They plan on using this model to experiment with American made production with an eye towards bringing more production to the US.
Our final stop of the tour was shopping for new Ibis t-shirts. We were all gifted a shirt, and Jessica received a new Ibis jersey to match her soon-to-be new steed.The tour was super interesting and super fun, thanks to tour guide Saris. We are forever grateful for Ibis’ ongoing support of our volunteer trail work efforts, various events, and most importantly, advocacy for mountain bike access in Santa Cruz County.
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