2020 Ibis DV9 Review - Carbon and affordable?
Pros and Cons
Pros:
Cons:
- Exceptional value
- Extremely Light
- Clearance for 2.6" tires
- Great XC bike
Cons:
- Extremely stiff riding frame, especially for smaller riders
- Now it's discontinued
- Could use a slacker head angle for trail riding
- Not very playful
Who it's for:
- People looking for a light carbon XC bike that won't break the bank
- People who want a stiff, fast accelerating ride
- People who want 2.6 compatibility in a lightweight package
Who it's NOT for
- light riders
- people catching air or venturing into black diamond trails
- riders looking for a playful ride
My full thoughts on the 2020 Ibis DV9
hey everybody on this episode of hardtail party we're reviewing the ibis dv9 carbon hard tail this is my wife spike and she loves this thing I love it too she's let me ride it a few times in fact I filmed the whole five-hour review of it and then accidentally deleted the footage so this is the second time filming this review we bought this as a frame I surprised her bought it as a frame and it's a cheap frame it's like 1,200 bucks which is cheap for a carbon hard tail frame the employees at ibis have some kids that race in the high-school naica XC races and they wanted to build a bike that those kids could buy after a summer of working hard and race on but still have a fun trail bike after the races and I think they hit the nail on the head with this so I bought it as a frame for her and then I built it up piece by piece we've got race face turbine cranks absolute black 32 tooth oval chain ring Xon derailleur xo1 cassette it's running SRAM level t brakes and is 938 aluminum wheels this frame will fit 29 by 2 6 but today we're running 29 by 2 3 5 we've got a fox step cast 34 up front and a 1 up dropper that I absolutely hate especially in this frame but that's for another day it's it's got issues I'm not a fan of one of droppers alright let's go hit the trail see what this thing is all about absolutely that's why I reviewed things I'm here with my buddies Thor and yes he's as awesome as his name is and Paul who's as awesome as his socks are let's go hit the trail this carbon frame is nice and stiff when you climb when you put power down it Rockets forward this bikes light - it's just over 25 pounds and we could get it a lot lighter with a lot more money on it hello
but the way the rear end feels on this when you put power down it doesn't flex side to side so you get great energy transfer but the question is does that translate to a rigid choppy ride when we're on the trail let's find out man this thing's a good climber hello thank you have a good one oh this thing could quite possibly be the best climbing hardtail I've ever written with it being light and so energy efficient with that stiff for your triangle now stiff for the climbs but I'm not saying it's stiff on the descents and with carbon you can engineer that in a lot harder to do with steel tie and aluminum
this thing loves to accelerate and 29er x' are perfect for this bike this is one hard tail I wouldn't want to run plus on
it feels like a perfect match for trail /xe on these two three fives especially on these wide rims these are the ibis 9:38 rims they're aluminum rims and they're pretty soft which I love and they're nice and wide so even though we have two three fives they fill out quite nicely with that wide rim profile it may or may not be Thor's anniversary today but it's not evening yet so he's still got a spectacular date planned I'm sure of it right Thor Thor might be single next week this bikes fun it feels a little bit between the old school geometry of great hard tails in the 2000s and a little bit of new-school geometry the reach is still kind of short I'm on a size medium which fits me really well the head angle 67 and a half so it does feel like a trail bike leaning a little like see it's not an enduro trail Smasher but it climbs extremely well and if your type of riding is this type of riding just trail riding not shredding super hard not going super big this could be the perfect bike for you let's go learn a little bit more about it
this bike has better power transfer to the pedals than even my titania middle child great climbing bike see how she does on the descents have a good one
bond ascents down
the chunky here especially on this bike but it's doing it on 34 now the back is not reading me up it's not what I tell supple like a really great titanium or steel hand-built frame that's got suppleness built in but it it's way softer than most aluminum frames they built a good amount of engineered I don't know flex or compliance it doesn't feel flexi but it doesn't transfer bumps to your feet as much as most carbon or aluminum frames really nice balance between being stiff under acceleration
and supple you can see I'm not charging nearly as hard as I would be on an aggressive our tail that's okay but always have the charge as hard as possible this bike just suits itself well too nice trail rides where you're not dropping off the biggest thing is hitting the largest jumps and just charging everything you'll have to pick your lines a little more carefully than something like my middle child tricky little move here this bike is a joy on technical climbs and the fire rope climbs yeah it's light it's easy to get where you need it to you can pick up the back end easily so last time I rode this section I cleaned it first try on this I don't know if that's gonna happen today this is a hard climb yeah baby this bike I'm so well you can you can adjust it and move where the bike is mid climb I really like that
you can wheelie really well just pivot it around and move it around so some bikes feel like dirt jumpers with droppers like my middle child and the santa cruz chameleon this bike doesn't have that feel it feels a little more like a trail bike but when you go to jump it and you go to manual it it's surprisingly like a dirt jumper so on the trail doesn't feel like a dirt jumper but when you take it to the jump park it actually does quite well feels a little more like a race BMX bike than a dirt jumper BMX bike for those of you that come from a BMX background fun bike though one thing that's super noticeable is the weight I'm able to lift it and just get over things really easily and I also love these Ibis wheels they're nice and soft and they're not beating me up and transferring feedback into me and once again it's amazing how the frame is stiff on the climbs but not stiff on the sense it's not supple it's not a soft heart tail but it's not stiff and jarring they did a good job finding the balance there
I love this trail if you're coming to the Sedona Mountain Bike Fest we're gonna ride this trail together it ends on a really fun flowy down you got some technical ups a little bit everything trails spicy well I had to dab today I don't normally have to on this bike all right there's a really tough line up here on the right the trail up here goes left around the rock I'm gonna try and go straight and get up on it but if you lean right you'll dump and fall off to the right and it's really dangerous
yeah baby got it this bike I'm so low
this bike prefers to be steered at the bars than leaning you can lean it but it feels a little more old-school how it wants to be thank you feels a little more old-school how it wants to be steered at the bars like that steer with the hands instead of the feet personally I prefer bikes that steer with the feet better than the hands and that usually means ass laughter head angle all this is fun I'm not getting beat up part of that's the wheels and part of that is the great design of the carbon of this frame
I mean carbons the future for high-end hardtails we can completely control the flex and the stiffness of every part of the bike I'm excited for five years from now when we've got even more carbon our tail option to just feel amazing this is the fastest sprinting bike I've ever ridden
so I am having to rein it in just a little on some of these corners because it steers like an XE race bike not like my middle child feels a lot like the chameleon the way it steers Oh such a good flowy section and it manuals well the chainstays are short which is great especially for younger smaller riders that are learning bike control skills
it's a quiet bike - there's no rattling even though the cables are internally routed they don't have tubes inside so you have to fish them when you build it that was a pain yeah it's still job super well so I've had this down at the pump track at the bike park here in Sedona and it pumps super well it feels like in a little racy BMX 26r and it jumps extremely well - it jumps like a BMX bike - which is surprising because it feels pretty trail ish right now I did think super head angles like this jump pretty well and for the record for hard tails I feel like anything bigger than 66 is what I would consider steep this is sixty seven and a half lower than 66 is starting to get towards slack I say that because some companies say with our new slack head angle of 68 degrees you can charge terrain and a lot of people don't know even though the companies saying in slack it's not slack so just because marketing info says slack doesn't mean it's not but this bikes just fine I just can't push it quite as hard that's when I ride my other aggressive bike sir here oh yeah so good lot of trail
this bike still parties but it's made better on green and blue trail living it can definitely ride blacks you're gonna be holding back thanks a lot I'm the last one it's fun riding with buddies so this stuff right here what this bike is meant for and this is what most trails are like in the u.s. mostly dirt occasional rocks twisty good grip not too bumpy flowy and this is where this bike shines but we twist these stuff like this it does well I'd still like it even slacker head angle to steer with my feet a little better
yeah
not quite as easy to manual as like the 4:15 chainstay middle child but still better than most
yeah this bike riding position is a little bit more old school than new school which some people will really like I like the step cast 34 just fine you're smooth rider no problem
all right let's wrap this up and break this down
this bike feels like just what they built it for be a great little XC race bike that isn't too twitchy it's not as twitchy as most race XC bikes which I love still a good trail bike it did a fantastic job making it sprint quick without flexing but still not beat you up on the downs nice and quiet bike it's not an aggressive hard tail not a hard core hard tail I'd put it in the same realm as the chameleon the chameleon feels more like a dirt jumper than this does chameleons a little more fun at the pump track dirt jumps and stuff this is a little more fun on long trail days if you put down a lot of miles there like setting fast Strava times or like the more traditional feel it's not quite so aggressive that you can steer with it the bars I'd recommend this over a chameleon if you want to manual and jump and goof off a little more I take the chameleon also the chameleon can run plus tires and this can't this is 29er only which makes sense with how the bike rides I don't know that this bike would ride that great with Plus even if it could fit them so climbing 11 out of 10 I've never ridden hard to other climbs like this it's so light you can make corrections mid climb and like if you're getting stuck or you're off line and you just want to lift that wheel up and move it over piece of cake if you want to lift the back up something big piece of cake I've cleaned more stuff first try on this bike than any other bike amazing climber and not just long fire road climbs but super punchy technical climbs it's amazing at that got the nice short rear end cornering I'm gonna give it a 7 out of 10 it's a little nervous on the corners it's got that steeper head angle it's not as steep as a true XC race bike and those are just playing twitchy and scary for me but this reminds me a lot of the chameleon how it steers it needs a slack your head angle and I'm actually gonna throw an angle set on this slackened out to 65 and do a review of that see if it changes it see if it makes me love this thing even more
playfulness I'm gonna give it an 8 out of 10 nice short chainstay when there's jumps that are built well it handles them well it's very composed in the air but it doesn't quite encourage me to jump off every little thing manual everywhere like the chameleon or my middle child and it's not aggressive enough to be you know fun on the fast route he counts how much party is in this bike I'm gonna say a 7 out of 10 for most people an 8 and a half if you really have great jumping and pumping and riding skills you can squeeze quite a bit out of this it definitely feels a lot more like a XE trail by then an all-mountain or enduro bike but that's not a knock that just means you don't want to take it on trails harder than this a lot are you'll just always being over your head but the perfect person for this is someone who XE races from time to time or puts down a lot of miles or is a lightweight rider like my wife she does so well on this because it's so light she can have a lot more power to get up stuff that it's 5 pounds lighter than her enduro bike I think this is good for people in the Midwest with flat flowy trails that don't have a whole lot of rock in them or super steep angles this bike holds its momentum really well it's Sprint's extremely well doesn't change direction really well and that carbons a treat and the price is fantastic great bike for someone who wants a clean non aggressive hard tail that flows really well and climbs really well if you're starting to experiment with getting your wheels off the ground and hitting jumps and gaps and drops I'd get something more aggressive this is best for staying on the ground
but it's still a super fun and snappy bike it makes it up every climb even if you're in the wrong gear that's pretty amazing even though this isn't the perfect hard tail for me to ride most of the time it's my favorite hard tail in this class it's an oddest twitchy as an XC race bike it's not as delicate it's almost as light and that carbon frame is a treat it flexes in just the right ways but it's amazing how stiff it is on the climbing they've done a lot of little cool things like added a second water bottle cage in there it's got a straight seat tube so you can run in a longer dropper there's no seat Staybridge so it's got that nice compliance in there I also love these rims these are my favorite budget wheel set the Ibis rims they're super wide they're cheap especially used they don't have great engagement on the hub but on a bike like this that doesn't matter quite so much and they're super wide so like a two three five really balloons out a two six would fill out really nice as well so yeah for a long distance hard tail or marathons or cross-country races this would be my first pick if I lived in the Midwest or Northern California or rode flowier trails that aren't super rocky super chunky or super steep this would be my main bike and if we're honest that is 90 percent of the trails in the US and if that's you I recommend this bike I really like it I would like it even more if it had a slacker head angle because then it would corner more like my other bikes so how does this bike compared to other bikes similar to it compared to the aluminum chameleon this bike leans a little more toward the trail XC side of things it's more efficient it's faster it's less energy to ride it's a little bit less fun the chameleons a little more fun it makes you want a wheelie more jump stuff but the chameleon still kind of has the nervous front end of this so the chameleons not perfect either so you got to ask yourself do I want a bike that is more setup for long-distance XC rides or do I want a bike that's a little more playful but still doesn't steer very well I don't know I think I would probably pick this and then I'd find a fun bike like the chameleon that has a slack head angle so I could get the best of both worlds so it seems like the chameleons kind of stuck between genres and isn't great at either but it feels like this is really great at epic long-distance marathon XC mellow flowy trails and so I think I would pick this over the chameleon despite the chameleon being slightly more fun and then compared to like an XC race bike XC race bikes are too lightweight I feel like I'm gonna break parts on them I feel like I have to take it way too easy on the trail and this is that great blend between lightweight but still not twitchy and still not gonna break everywhere I go I'm really impressed with how light we got this we don't have a light crank we don't have a light drop or we don't have a light bar we could probably drop another pound off this but that'd probably drop a pound off our wallet cool bike Ibis thank you for making the dv9 I think it's perfect for its intended purpose high schoolers can go out work all summer and pay for a great hardtail that they can race all year on and then still have fun trail riding in between races thanks for watching it's been fun reviewing this with you thanks for hanging out with me there's a party in the mountains and you're invited
but the way the rear end feels on this when you put power down it doesn't flex side to side so you get great energy transfer but the question is does that translate to a rigid choppy ride when we're on the trail let's find out man this thing's a good climber hello thank you have a good one oh this thing could quite possibly be the best climbing hardtail I've ever written with it being light and so energy efficient with that stiff for your triangle now stiff for the climbs but I'm not saying it's stiff on the descents and with carbon you can engineer that in a lot harder to do with steel tie and aluminum
this thing loves to accelerate and 29er x' are perfect for this bike this is one hard tail I wouldn't want to run plus on
it feels like a perfect match for trail /xe on these two three fives especially on these wide rims these are the ibis 9:38 rims they're aluminum rims and they're pretty soft which I love and they're nice and wide so even though we have two three fives they fill out quite nicely with that wide rim profile it may or may not be Thor's anniversary today but it's not evening yet so he's still got a spectacular date planned I'm sure of it right Thor Thor might be single next week this bikes fun it feels a little bit between the old school geometry of great hard tails in the 2000s and a little bit of new-school geometry the reach is still kind of short I'm on a size medium which fits me really well the head angle 67 and a half so it does feel like a trail bike leaning a little like see it's not an enduro trail Smasher but it climbs extremely well and if your type of riding is this type of riding just trail riding not shredding super hard not going super big this could be the perfect bike for you let's go learn a little bit more about it
this bike has better power transfer to the pedals than even my titania middle child great climbing bike see how she does on the descents have a good one
bond ascents down
the chunky here especially on this bike but it's doing it on 34 now the back is not reading me up it's not what I tell supple like a really great titanium or steel hand-built frame that's got suppleness built in but it it's way softer than most aluminum frames they built a good amount of engineered I don't know flex or compliance it doesn't feel flexi but it doesn't transfer bumps to your feet as much as most carbon or aluminum frames really nice balance between being stiff under acceleration
and supple you can see I'm not charging nearly as hard as I would be on an aggressive our tail that's okay but always have the charge as hard as possible this bike just suits itself well too nice trail rides where you're not dropping off the biggest thing is hitting the largest jumps and just charging everything you'll have to pick your lines a little more carefully than something like my middle child tricky little move here this bike is a joy on technical climbs and the fire rope climbs yeah it's light it's easy to get where you need it to you can pick up the back end easily so last time I rode this section I cleaned it first try on this I don't know if that's gonna happen today this is a hard climb yeah baby this bike I'm so well you can you can adjust it and move where the bike is mid climb I really like that
you can wheelie really well just pivot it around and move it around so some bikes feel like dirt jumpers with droppers like my middle child and the santa cruz chameleon this bike doesn't have that feel it feels a little more like a trail bike but when you go to jump it and you go to manual it it's surprisingly like a dirt jumper so on the trail doesn't feel like a dirt jumper but when you take it to the jump park it actually does quite well feels a little more like a race BMX bike than a dirt jumper BMX bike for those of you that come from a BMX background fun bike though one thing that's super noticeable is the weight I'm able to lift it and just get over things really easily and I also love these Ibis wheels they're nice and soft and they're not beating me up and transferring feedback into me and once again it's amazing how the frame is stiff on the climbs but not stiff on the sense it's not supple it's not a soft heart tail but it's not stiff and jarring they did a good job finding the balance there
I love this trail if you're coming to the Sedona Mountain Bike Fest we're gonna ride this trail together it ends on a really fun flowy down you got some technical ups a little bit everything trails spicy well I had to dab today I don't normally have to on this bike all right there's a really tough line up here on the right the trail up here goes left around the rock I'm gonna try and go straight and get up on it but if you lean right you'll dump and fall off to the right and it's really dangerous
yeah baby got it this bike I'm so low
this bike prefers to be steered at the bars than leaning you can lean it but it feels a little more old-school how it wants to be thank you feels a little more old-school how it wants to be steered at the bars like that steer with the hands instead of the feet personally I prefer bikes that steer with the feet better than the hands and that usually means ass laughter head angle all this is fun I'm not getting beat up part of that's the wheels and part of that is the great design of the carbon of this frame
I mean carbons the future for high-end hardtails we can completely control the flex and the stiffness of every part of the bike I'm excited for five years from now when we've got even more carbon our tail option to just feel amazing this is the fastest sprinting bike I've ever ridden
so I am having to rein it in just a little on some of these corners because it steers like an XE race bike not like my middle child feels a lot like the chameleon the way it steers Oh such a good flowy section and it manuals well the chainstays are short which is great especially for younger smaller riders that are learning bike control skills
it's a quiet bike - there's no rattling even though the cables are internally routed they don't have tubes inside so you have to fish them when you build it that was a pain yeah it's still job super well so I've had this down at the pump track at the bike park here in Sedona and it pumps super well it feels like in a little racy BMX 26r and it jumps extremely well - it jumps like a BMX bike - which is surprising because it feels pretty trail ish right now I did think super head angles like this jump pretty well and for the record for hard tails I feel like anything bigger than 66 is what I would consider steep this is sixty seven and a half lower than 66 is starting to get towards slack I say that because some companies say with our new slack head angle of 68 degrees you can charge terrain and a lot of people don't know even though the companies saying in slack it's not slack so just because marketing info says slack doesn't mean it's not but this bikes just fine I just can't push it quite as hard that's when I ride my other aggressive bike sir here oh yeah so good lot of trail
this bike still parties but it's made better on green and blue trail living it can definitely ride blacks you're gonna be holding back thanks a lot I'm the last one it's fun riding with buddies so this stuff right here what this bike is meant for and this is what most trails are like in the u.s. mostly dirt occasional rocks twisty good grip not too bumpy flowy and this is where this bike shines but we twist these stuff like this it does well I'd still like it even slacker head angle to steer with my feet a little better
yeah
not quite as easy to manual as like the 4:15 chainstay middle child but still better than most
yeah this bike riding position is a little bit more old school than new school which some people will really like I like the step cast 34 just fine you're smooth rider no problem
all right let's wrap this up and break this down
this bike feels like just what they built it for be a great little XC race bike that isn't too twitchy it's not as twitchy as most race XC bikes which I love still a good trail bike it did a fantastic job making it sprint quick without flexing but still not beat you up on the downs nice and quiet bike it's not an aggressive hard tail not a hard core hard tail I'd put it in the same realm as the chameleon the chameleon feels more like a dirt jumper than this does chameleons a little more fun at the pump track dirt jumps and stuff this is a little more fun on long trail days if you put down a lot of miles there like setting fast Strava times or like the more traditional feel it's not quite so aggressive that you can steer with it the bars I'd recommend this over a chameleon if you want to manual and jump and goof off a little more I take the chameleon also the chameleon can run plus tires and this can't this is 29er only which makes sense with how the bike rides I don't know that this bike would ride that great with Plus even if it could fit them so climbing 11 out of 10 I've never ridden hard to other climbs like this it's so light you can make corrections mid climb and like if you're getting stuck or you're off line and you just want to lift that wheel up and move it over piece of cake if you want to lift the back up something big piece of cake I've cleaned more stuff first try on this bike than any other bike amazing climber and not just long fire road climbs but super punchy technical climbs it's amazing at that got the nice short rear end cornering I'm gonna give it a 7 out of 10 it's a little nervous on the corners it's got that steeper head angle it's not as steep as a true XC race bike and those are just playing twitchy and scary for me but this reminds me a lot of the chameleon how it steers it needs a slack your head angle and I'm actually gonna throw an angle set on this slackened out to 65 and do a review of that see if it changes it see if it makes me love this thing even more
playfulness I'm gonna give it an 8 out of 10 nice short chainstay when there's jumps that are built well it handles them well it's very composed in the air but it doesn't quite encourage me to jump off every little thing manual everywhere like the chameleon or my middle child and it's not aggressive enough to be you know fun on the fast route he counts how much party is in this bike I'm gonna say a 7 out of 10 for most people an 8 and a half if you really have great jumping and pumping and riding skills you can squeeze quite a bit out of this it definitely feels a lot more like a XE trail by then an all-mountain or enduro bike but that's not a knock that just means you don't want to take it on trails harder than this a lot are you'll just always being over your head but the perfect person for this is someone who XE races from time to time or puts down a lot of miles or is a lightweight rider like my wife she does so well on this because it's so light she can have a lot more power to get up stuff that it's 5 pounds lighter than her enduro bike I think this is good for people in the Midwest with flat flowy trails that don't have a whole lot of rock in them or super steep angles this bike holds its momentum really well it's Sprint's extremely well doesn't change direction really well and that carbons a treat and the price is fantastic great bike for someone who wants a clean non aggressive hard tail that flows really well and climbs really well if you're starting to experiment with getting your wheels off the ground and hitting jumps and gaps and drops I'd get something more aggressive this is best for staying on the ground
but it's still a super fun and snappy bike it makes it up every climb even if you're in the wrong gear that's pretty amazing even though this isn't the perfect hard tail for me to ride most of the time it's my favorite hard tail in this class it's an oddest twitchy as an XC race bike it's not as delicate it's almost as light and that carbon frame is a treat it flexes in just the right ways but it's amazing how stiff it is on the climbing they've done a lot of little cool things like added a second water bottle cage in there it's got a straight seat tube so you can run in a longer dropper there's no seat Staybridge so it's got that nice compliance in there I also love these rims these are my favorite budget wheel set the Ibis rims they're super wide they're cheap especially used they don't have great engagement on the hub but on a bike like this that doesn't matter quite so much and they're super wide so like a two three five really balloons out a two six would fill out really nice as well so yeah for a long distance hard tail or marathons or cross-country races this would be my first pick if I lived in the Midwest or Northern California or rode flowier trails that aren't super rocky super chunky or super steep this would be my main bike and if we're honest that is 90 percent of the trails in the US and if that's you I recommend this bike I really like it I would like it even more if it had a slacker head angle because then it would corner more like my other bikes so how does this bike compared to other bikes similar to it compared to the aluminum chameleon this bike leans a little more toward the trail XC side of things it's more efficient it's faster it's less energy to ride it's a little bit less fun the chameleons a little more fun it makes you want a wheelie more jump stuff but the chameleon still kind of has the nervous front end of this so the chameleons not perfect either so you got to ask yourself do I want a bike that is more setup for long-distance XC rides or do I want a bike that's a little more playful but still doesn't steer very well I don't know I think I would probably pick this and then I'd find a fun bike like the chameleon that has a slack head angle so I could get the best of both worlds so it seems like the chameleons kind of stuck between genres and isn't great at either but it feels like this is really great at epic long-distance marathon XC mellow flowy trails and so I think I would pick this over the chameleon despite the chameleon being slightly more fun and then compared to like an XC race bike XC race bikes are too lightweight I feel like I'm gonna break parts on them I feel like I have to take it way too easy on the trail and this is that great blend between lightweight but still not twitchy and still not gonna break everywhere I go I'm really impressed with how light we got this we don't have a light crank we don't have a light drop or we don't have a light bar we could probably drop another pound off this but that'd probably drop a pound off our wallet cool bike Ibis thank you for making the dv9 I think it's perfect for its intended purpose high schoolers can go out work all summer and pay for a great hardtail that they can race all year on and then still have fun trail riding in between races thanks for watching it's been fun reviewing this with you thanks for hanging out with me there's a party in the mountains and you're invited