I was faced with the fact that the mountain bike for the kid was not gonna fit anymore, right as the time to ride mountain bikes is going up up up. So, like any asshole, I was seriously considering an Ibis Ripmo AF because, well, it's METAL! and the kid is still at the point where they ride what you give 'em, though the coming years might and probably will begin the period when the damb stubborn kid will chose the bike junk they like even if they're wrong...
The Ripmo is held up as a really good deal, but that's just not true, especially above that loss-leader NX model. The SLX bike at four grand is not really an okay deal, though I do like the idea of the Ibis-branded high-value bar, stem, hubs, rims on an entry-level Ibis bike and wonder where the Ibis WTB or Fabric saddle is. But, I really think Dave Weagle is a fucking fraud who ripped off the VPP idea fairly clumsily, and I really don't want to patronize the DW Link if at all possible. I'm pretty much done with all those VPP linkage-derived bikes in general, especially the Weagle-branded ones and the more fragile, goofy, rube-goldberg ones--cough, Intense, Canfield, Knolly, cough. I like a good deal, though, and that good deal is the Orbea Occam AF at $3000, the H20. Fits okay, no Sram garbage, brand-name suspension, a smattering of that SLX stuff with an XT rear mech and one thousand US dollars less than the Ibis. No Dave Weagle crap. No dentist bike brand. Save a grand. Cool.
(The Kona Process 134 AF DL 29 is really not doing it for me at $3.7k, sadly, and the Process AF 134 AF 29 is pretty cheaply spec'd for an idiot like me, though I really like the green even more than the sunset orange. At the same time, the leftover Transition Sentinels "on sale" are still wicked expensive, way too wicked expensive for a fucking kid bike.)
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