Ante Up for the Trails Winner

As many of your know we have been run­ning a cam­paign late­ly with Moun­tain Bik­ers of San­ta Cruz (MBOSC) called Ante Up for the Trails.

If you’re not famil­iar, it works like this: You Ante Up some filthy lucre in incre­ments of $5 and send it over to MBOSC. Each fiv­er gets you a chance to win ANY IBIS OF YOUR CHOICE. 

We are proud to announce that our lat­est Ante Up for Trails cam­paign raised $86,740 to sup­port San­ta Cruz area trails!

Thank you to every­body who sup­port­ed this effort. Whether you con­tributed $5 or $1,000, you helped us reach this goal, and we achieved suc­cess together!

But we know what you’re think­ing: Did I win? Who is the lucky win­ner of that brand new Ibis?

Kevin hails from North Van­cou­ver, so of course he has access to some amaz­ing trails! As he describes, ​“I love to ride my bike any­where, but I grew up on the North Shore of BC. The tech­ni­cal root gnar here still holds a spe­cial place in my heart, but as I get old­er and wis­er (?soft­er), I am grav­i­tat­ing towards the more open and flowy ter­rain in Squamish to the north, and the Chilcotin range when time permits.”

Kevin said that he first heard of the Ante Up for Trails cam­paign on social media a few years ago and has been a fan of MBOSC’s work ever since. While he’s nev­er rid­den in San­ta Cruz, he says it’s on the top of his rid­ing des­ti­na­tion buck­et list! Kevin said that win­ning a brand new Ibis feels ​“Unbe­liev­able. I am tru­ly shocked… and incred­i­bly stoked. I spent count­less hours as a teenag­er in the ear­ly 90’s drool­ing over Ibis bikes in moun­tain bike mag­a­zines, and have hoped to own one ever since!”

The Ante Up for Trails cam­paign is of course all about pro­mot­ing trail stew­ard­ship while rais­ing funds for trails in the San­ta Cruz area. Kevin is a big sup­port­er of trail orga­ni­za­tions both in his local area and all over the world, such as right here in San­ta Cruz! ​“Orga­ni­za­tions such as the MBOSC have allowed the trans­for­ma­tion of moun­tain bik­ing into the won­der­ful sport it is today- by build­ing com­mu­ni­ty, advanc­ing trail sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and guar­an­tee­ing access for moun­tain bik­ers today and in the future,” Kevin explained, ​“I owe my enjoy­ment (and hope­ful­ly my children’s enjoy­ment) of the sport to my local trail advo­ca­cy and stew­ard­ship groups, and am always thrilled to hear when sim­i­lar groups pro­vide the same oppor­tu­ni­ties for those liv­ing in oth­er areas around the world.”

When we asked Kevin how he’s involved with stew­ard­ship on his local trails, and he had some­thing impor­tant to say: ​“Life with young chil­dren and work in the past few years has meant that I haven’t been able to direct­ly con­tribute to trail build­ing and advo­ca­cy in the way I would have hoped. Fail­ing this, I have cho­sen to con­tribute finan­cial­ly to moun­tain bik­ing trail advocacy/​stewardship groups when­ev­er the oppor­tu­ni­ty presents itself.” Kevin’s right: not hav­ing time to dig doesn’t mean you can’t still be involved with trail stew­ard­ship! We under­stand that not every­body can give-up a Sat­ur­day to help build trails, but as we always say: dig, donate, or advo­cate! Pick two.

Curi­ous what sweet new Ibis Kevin will be rid­ing soon on his home­town trails? ​“The Rip­mo looks like an amaz­ing bike, and a per­fect fit for the steep sin­gle track climb­ing trails and rough descents where I live (and not to men­tion a per­fect bike to take for a rip on the trails in San­ta Cruz – hope­ful­ly one day soon!)”

We can’t wait to show you our favorite San­ta Cruz trails Kevin, and next time we’re up in Van­cou­ver, we can’t wait for you to show us yours! Thanks again to every­body who sup­port­ed this cam­paign, and a spe­cial shoutout to Ibis for being a long­time strong sup­port­er of MBOSC.