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Apprehensive on Mojo Purchase Cracked Frames

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intensworks

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
About to consider a Mojo but the reliability of the frame just holds me back. I have to put Ibis to the ultimate test here. I have read ALL posts good and bad about heavyset riders riding just fine and others dealing with cracked frames. I don't want to buy a frame that may be a hit or miss. For the market price of the frame, the rate of people's complaints of cracked frames should be minimal and maybe it feels as you just have to HOPE that your frame doesn't develop stress marks or cracks.

Please convince me that current Mojos won't have issues or what is your opinion on the lifespan of carbon frames.

I drool like all looky looks on the edge of buying but I see those postings and I cringe at cracking my new frame. :confused:

HELP
 
#2 ·
Well I'm confident that the cause of my recent crack has been resolved in the production process.

I should point out that despite the crack in the vertical strut of the chain stay, I still can't even flex the rear end - although it looks like a minor surface problem and should be replaced, it is still quite solid; indeed I still managed to ride home and did another small jump (before I actually realised I had the crack).

I'd be more worried about using carbon handlebars than a carbon frame - if the bars fail you could be in a world of trouble.
 
#3 ·
I don't really think there has been an epidemic of broken frames. If you look at any brand out there you can find a broken frame, but then look at what type of customer service follows. Looks to me like Ibis, Turner and Ventana have some of the best CS.

My wife rides a Mojo and she rides it hard. If I was worried about her safety on a carbon bike I'd buy her something else. I think the Mojo is fine and will last a long long time. If you want to look at market price vs. frame breakage check out the Ellsworth board,,,
 
#5 ·
Theres always Iron Horse and also Pivot Cycles, a new company that is coming out with a line of high end aluminum dw-link bikes. Frames look to be very well made ands up to taking a thrashing.
Another option would be the Felt Compulsion, which may even eclipse the dw-link
in terms of overall peformance. (notice I said may, havent ridden one so dont
flame me, just mentioning it cause I'm very impressed by it)

If you do get an Ibis and it breaks, not to worry, they will take care of you.
 
#6 ·
Yep. ScottW is right. All brands experience ocassional frame failures. From Trek to Turners to Yetis to Ellsworth and Ibis. The difference is how the company's CS takes care of you (assuming it was an honest failure and not the driving into my garage with the bike rack kinda thing).
 
#7 ·
erm Ellsworth to me has the highest reported cracked frames. Ibis CS is one of the best, I heard Giant is good too but Im not sure cause I never used their warranty yet and they dont have a Giant dude wondering around MTBR forum
 
#8 ·
I have had my Mojo for 10 months now. I ride it EVERY day.

I don't like my bike. I love it.

I have ridden many bikes but this one has the best feel, the best looks, climbs and accelerates like a motorcycle, handles great - I love it. The only problem is: after you get one you find certain parts of your life start to change - you want to work fewer hours (so you can ride every afternoon), you want to pick your vacations based upon the quality of trail riding in the area, you start picking friends based upon whether or not they can hang with you climbing the local hills, etc.

Last but not least, don't necessarily believe any or all of what you hear about "cracked" frames on this web site. I suspect the stories of these situations are created by IBIS competitors.

Get the Mojo, you won't be sorry.

bikerneil
 
#9 ·
Carbon failure fears!? I have that same hesitation, about carbon in general. But rationally mulling it over, the only failed carbon bars I've seen (work in a bike shop) are pretty much pilot error (over tightened clamps, etc). I've seen carbon bikes, forks, bars pretty danged dinged up, flaking clear coats, scuffs and abrasions, etc and keep on ticking. I'd personally replace stuff that beat, aluminum or carbon, but from the *major* players, carbon seems a fine enough choice. I have seen far more broken aluminum bars than carbon, but then, there are more aluminum bars in use...

Our shop just became an IBIS dealer and I'm a little freaked out how to recommend them to riders, but seeing those photos Hans put in of their tester flogging one, I'm not too concerned about carbon being fragile beyond belief. I think there is so much more to it in the manufacturing process and engineering. Carbon is certainly a mature product and worth a look. It just may prove stronger and more durable than aluminum!

So, we got a demo Mojo and are just going to ride it like we own it. No worries. I do recall in the late 90s, I had a Trek 9800 OCLV (duh, optimum compaction, low void; like anyone would want FCQV, fair compaction, quite a few voids) carbon hardtail for two plus seasons of riding and racing. I flogged that bike and got the carbon finish (just raw carbon) looking just horrible, rubs, scuffs, chips and some significant dings. It was soooo bad, that no one would consider buying it used, scary looking. It is still running strong under my little brother and ridden offroad nearly daily. Hmmmm?

Just pony up, get the Mojo and ride it.
 
#10 ·
I'm a realist

so here's the deal. Can the Mojo break? sure? Will it? Who knows? Do other bikes break? Yes. If you buy another bike, will it break. Maybe. What happens AFTER it breaks? If you're heavy, I think I'd be worried about riding pretty much any bike with the exception of a very few....and they're most likely going to be FR built bikes (meaning just really overbuilt) with trailbike geo....like versus, chumba, ventana, etc.

Now a lot of other threads think that mojo owners are super obsessive....think it's THEEE best thing on wheels, would never think of riding another bike again, yadda yadda yadda. I'm NOT one of those....yes, I own an IBIS. But like the topic of my thread...i'm a realist. I could have very well have bought another bike and been just as happy. "We" get knocked because if someone mentions any slight deficiency in the bike, "we" get all defensive and come running to defend the mojo against all attackers....good grief....give me a break. I'm being sarcastic here of course. I find that if you go into any boutique bike thread this is the case. they all want to defend the brand they bought till the very end....check out Turner and see what happens. :thumbsup:

The point of that is your post will of course bring out biased answers.....so it's going to be skewed. There are thousands of mojo owners....some may report breaks on this forum....others may not. I would imagine a very small proportion of actual owners even belong to this thread. And even if they read MTBR, who says they actually will post? So you can't base the number of breaks you see on this thread as proportionate to the entire population. Also, you can't take all the reviews of the bike here as solid info either. It helps of course. Seems to me that if there are issues/concerns, etc brought up on a forum like this, it only helps to polarize everyone into thinking it's the truth or more pronounced that it really may be. For instance....someone yells "My bike broke!!!! wah wah wah". All of a sudden you see more threads/replies popping up. Why? I doubt that everyone experienced breaks all at the same time. you have to be able to read beyond that. This goes for both good and bad. Good reviews breed more good reviews because it's in human nature to want to believe that what they bought was the right decision. Same goes with bad. if you read bad things, you're going to be more worried than is maybe warranted. it's the self fulfilling prophecy.

Here's my advice....read what's here. take it all with a grain of salt...even mine. Call Ibis. If you consider yourself a "clydesdale" or are 180-200 lbs....or maybe just ride REALLY hard, talk to Tom/Scot/Hans. ask them about the warranty process. Ask them if they see an unexpected amount of breaks/warranty replacements. They're an honest bunch from personal experience and as well as the things i read about from their own posts. I don't think they'll have any problems with your questions.
 
#12 ·
SlimTwisted said:
Not a bad point Scottw!
Click to expand...
Not to badmouth other builders but my observation is that often there is trouble in the first year or so for a new frame. In addition of Ellsworth, you can count Turner: pretty much every model they introduced experienced broken seattubes and chainstays in their first year (including the apparently beefier ones, just do a search for the Turner Highline freeride) . What happens is that the problem get fixed (i.e. certain parts beefed up) and if the builder is smart he keeps the costumer happy by promptly sending a new frame or part.

However, compared to what I have seen on MTBR in the last 4 years the Mojo had very few youth troubles. the bike has been out for almost two years and my opinion you should buy with very high confidence :thumbsup:
 
#13 ·
Do the math

ddraewwg said:
......I would imagine a very small proportion of actual [Mojo] owners even belong to this thread. And even if they read MTBR, who says they actually will post? So you can't base the number of breaks you see on this thread as proportionate to the entire population...........Good reviews breed more good reviews because it's in human nature to want to believe that what they bought was the right decision. Same goes with bad. if you read bad things, you're going to be more worried than is maybe warranted. it's the self fulfilling prophecy......
Click to expand...
Excellent points! :thumbsup:
 
#14 ·
However, compared to what I have seen on MTBR in the last 4 years the Mojo had very few youth troubles. the bike has been out for almost two years and my opinion you should buy with very high confidence
Click to expand...
Yeah, I never seen a bike that got almost -> perfect reviews from most magazines and the negative points are really minor. Heck even MTBR review is perfect after 20+ reviewers (correct me if im wrong, i lazy to check mtbr Mojo review site). I have been observing the forum for quite a while and I havent seen any real breakage issue yet. So like Davide say, you can buy it with full confidence.

Go Ibis! Go Ibis! Go Ibis!
 
#15 ·
Well said! I totally agree.

ddraewwg said:
so here's the deal. Can the Mojo break? sure? Will it? Who knows? Do other bikes break? Yes. If you buy another bike, will it break. Maybe. What happens AFTER it breaks? If you're heavy, I think I'd be worried about riding pretty much any bike with the exception of a very few....and they're most likely going to be FR built bikes (meaning just really overbuilt) with trailbike geo....like versus, chumba, ventana, etc.

Now a lot of other threads think that mojo owners are super obsessive....think it's THEEE best thing on wheels, would never think of riding another bike again, yadda yadda yadda. I'm NOT one of those....yes, I own an IBIS. But like the topic of my thread...i'm a realist. I could have very well have bought another bike and been just as happy. "We" get knocked because if someone mentions any slight deficiency in the bike, "we" get all defensive and come running to defend the mojo against all attackers....good grief....give me a break. I'm being sarcastic here of course. I find that if you go into any boutique bike thread this is the case. they all want to defend the brand they bought till the very end....check out Turner and see what happens. :thumbsup:

The point of that is your post will of course bring out biased answers.....so it's going to be skewed. There are thousands of mojo owners....some may report breaks on this forum....others may not. I would imagine a very small proportion of actual owners even belong to this thread. And even if they read MTBR, who says they actually will post? So you can't base the number of breaks you see on this thread as proportionate to the entire population. Also, you can't take all the reviews of the bike here as solid info either. It helps of course. Seems to me that if there are issues/concerns, etc brought up on a forum like this, it only helps to polarize everyone into thinking it's the truth or more pronounced that it really may be. For instance....someone yells "My bike broke!!!! wah wah wah". All of a sudden you see more threads/replies popping up. Why? I doubt that everyone experienced breaks all at the same time. you have to be able to read beyond that. This goes for both good and bad. Good reviews breed more good reviews because it's in human nature to want to believe that what they bought was the right decision. Same goes with bad. if you read bad things, you're going to be more worried than is maybe warranted. it's the self fulfilling prophecy.
Click to expand...
 
#16 ·
Kick that apprehension right in the butt! Carbon is a great material, and in the hands of people as skilled as the Ibis team it can be shaped into some truly amazing structural components. The mojo is a fantastic example of what can be accomplished in carbon. I wouldn't even think twice about the material choice for a second!

Dave
 
#17 ·
This is a from a thread lurker and Mojo owner for over a year. Crashed it a few times and it takes abuse. I have done 3 ft drops on it and small jumps. It's really a fine strong bike. It's all about Design and Engineering rather than purely material.

I have also had a Kestrel CSX (carbon monocoque hardtail ca 1990's) which I rode into the ground for 10 years. The BB shell finally separated, but that was a manufacturing flaw.

I realy have no qualms about the bike or material.
 
#20 ·
bikerneil said:
I have had my Mojo for 10 months now. I ride it EVERY day.

I don't like my bike. I love it.

I have ridden many bikes but this one has the best feel, the best looks, climbs and accelerates like a motorcycle, handles great - I love it. The only problem is: after you get one you find certain parts of your life start to change - you want to work fewer hours (so you can ride every afternoon), you want to pick your vacations based upon the quality of trail riding in the area, you start picking friends based upon whether or not they can hang with you climbing the local hills, etc.

Last but not least, don't necessarily believe any or all of what you hear about "cracked" frames on this web site. I suspect the stories of these situations are created by IBIS competitors.

Get the Mojo, you won't be sorry.

bikerneil
Click to expand...
Soooooooo True//// The main thing that hits the soul, is the way the bike handles, and feels, and that sweet spot, when you put your weight there into a corner:D :D :D :D :D .. yum: simply the best:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:.
 
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