The Ripmo AF (Aluminum Frame) brings the award-winning performance of the carbon Ripmo to a wider, rowdier audience. It’s everything we love from the carbon Ripmo, plus a few tweaks. Best of all, complete bikes start at only $3,000.

From moun­tain biking’s awk­ward ado­les­cence to its cur­rent any­thing-shred­dy era, we’ve ridden steel, alu­minum and tita­ni­um — remember the Bow-Ti, the first super­bike? We remem­ber the met­al times too, and it feels good to see a pre­mi­um ride expe­ri­ence for the broad­en­ing fam­i­ly of rid­ers, cour­tesy of durable, afford­able alu­minum alloy.

With a steep, 76-degree seat tube angle and a rangy but not stratos­pher­ic reach, the Rip­mo AF places rid­ers cen­tral­ly and upright over the bot­tom brack­et. It makes for an effi­cient position that can go the long haul with­out plac­ing too much weight on its slack, 64.9-degree head­tube angle. A 44mm reduced-off­set fork is more sure­foot­ed on steep descents and stead­ies high speeds. Bet­ter up, bet­ter down.

There are two frame colorways and three complete builds to choose from. Framsets are $1,799. The SRAM NX build is $2,999, the Shimano SLX build is $3,999, and the SRAM GX complete is $4,299.