Photo:EverettUtterback

28

Chipps catches up with Scot Nicol, the man behind Ibis Bicycles.

Ifi rst met Scot ‘Chuck Ibis’ Nicol in about 1992 on a visit to California. Back then, Ritchey, Salsa, Bontrager, Ibis, Rock Lobster and many other ‘names’ all had workshops making TIG welded steel bikes within an hour’s drive of San Francisco. It was a hotbed of bike designing and manufacture. Ibis already had a reputation for building beautiful, fi nely crafted steel (and later titanium) bikes. They were less ‘racey’ than Ritcheys, less ‘dry-engineering’ than Bontrager bikes, and less zany than Salsa. They turned out some lovely frames, many of which are highly sought after today. It wasn’t just the sleek design that appealed, but the little touches like the three or four colour fade paint (with matching, painted Silca pump), or the ‘Hand Job’ cable holder. They went on to do a great deal of innovation in progressing mountain bikes: one of the fi rst small builders to master titanium frames and stems, an early adopter of full suspension, steel-and-carbon bikes... And yet their workshop was a place of loud music and bunk-off bike rides in the idyllic Californian weather. On sunny days, the welders moved their jigs out of the doors and on to the back porch of the shop so that they could weld and tan simultaneously. And back in 1993, when I was going to take a holiday to California, Chuck said to me “You can’t come this close and not go to Moab. I insist that you go!” And after a four-hour internal fl ight and a fi ve-hour drive, he was right and I’ve been in love with the place ever since. But though many people will have heard of Ibis, very few would be able to pick out (or even name) Scot Nicol as the boss of one of those seminal mountain bike companies. So without further ado, let’s catch up with Mr Ibis. . .

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