Zak is Back!

Zakarias Johansen will rejoin­ing the Ibis Cycles EWS Team, where he began his EWS career. He’ll join Bex Baraona, Robin Wall­ner, and Cole Lucas in rep­re­sent­ing our San­ta Cruz, Cal­i­for­nia based company.

Robin and Zakarias joined forces in 2017 to help Ibis win the Over­all EWS Team Cham­pi­onship. Sub­se­quent­ly, the duo helped Team Swe­den bring home the sil­ver medal at the 2019 EWS Tro­phy of Nations.

Accord­ing to Robin Wall­ner, the Team Captain:

“Zak­ka is like my broth­er, so I’m excit­ed to have him come back to the Ibis fam­i­ly. We have shared a coach and train­ing pro­grams since he first hopped on the EWS scene. It’s great to have my train­ing part­ner in crime rejoin the team. I’m look­ing for­ward to a lot of good times and laughs togeth­er in 2021.”

Team Man­ag­er and Ibis Cycles Pres­i­dent (and occa­sion­al Jan­i­tor) Tom Mor­gan echoed the same thing.

“We’re hap­py to wel­come Zak­ka home, where he start­ed his EWS career. He is one of the most con­sis­tent and suc­cess­ful rid­ers in the field. He’s cur­rent­ly ranked 10^th glob­al­ly and rarely fin­ish­es out­side of the top 20. We’re stoked to have him back aboard an Ibis.”

Here’s what Zakarias had to say about the new move:

“The cir­cle is now com­plete. I’m back with Ibis Cycles, where I start­ed my pro­fes­sion­al career five years ago. I could­n’t be more stoked. After rid­ing for oth­er com­pa­nies, I know what I’m look­ing for in a team. I want to be sur­round­ed by friends and like mind­ed people.

With the crew at Ibis, I will be sur­round­ed by some of my best friends, includ­ing Robin Wall­ner and our Head Mechan­ic Mats Pet­ters­son. I also know Cole Lucs and Bex Baraona very well. I’m look­ing for­ward to mak­ing sto­ries togeth­er both on and off the bike!

To top it all off, we have Tom Mor­gan orga­niz­ing. Tom is an awe­some team man­ag­er. I have yet to find some­one who cares about his rid­ers and wants them to suc­ceed the way he does.

While I’ve been gone, Ibis hasn’t been lying around being lazy. It was hard not to smile when I jumped on the new Ibis Rip­mo V2 for the first time. Damn does it feel good to be back on that dw-link suspension.

Test­ing the new bike had me real­ly excit­ed to work with Col­in Hugh­es and the rest of the engi­neers at Ibis. In addi­tion to hav­ing great frames, Team Ibis is also sup­port­ed by some of the best com­po­nent man­u­fac­tur­ers on the mar­ket today. I’m beyond excit­ed to con­tin­ue work­ing with Fox and Shi­mano. Their sup­port over the years has been price­less. I’m also hap­py to be back on POC, a Swedish com­pa­ny. I’m look­ing for­ward to build­ing rela­tion­ships with the oth­er team sponsors.”

The Ibis Cycles EWS Team is sup­port­ed by Poc Sports, Bike Yoke, Maxxis, Fox, Shi­mano, Lizard Skins, WTB, Stages Cycling, Cush­core, One­Up, Motion Instru­ments, and Umara Sports.