On April Fools day of 1981, Scot Nicol “hung up his shingle” on a funky little shop a few miles east of Mendocino California. On that day, Ibis was started without money and without a plan. Today we’re located in Santa Cruz with 40 (or so) people working at Ibis. Our 5 owners all work full time for the company. Hans Heim is our CEO, Tom Morgan is our president, Colin Hughes leads our engineering department, Roxy Lo is our designer and Scot tries to stay out of the way.
Back in 2011 on our 30th birthday, we decided to recap a few stories and highlights and take a trip down memory lane. We dusted the cobwebs off the old photo albums, went through the archives and tried to remember stuff long since forgotten (the 60’s were rough on some of us). We made it to 25 stories, then the weather got good and we traded typing for pedaling. We’ve still got about 20 years of history to write.
Down below, you’ll see links to some stories that tell a tiny bit of the history of Ibis. Get ready for some bad haircuts and embarrassing paint jobs. And a bit of a history lesson on all things Ibis and mountain bike.
