What is missing?

This is.  The Ibis Mojo HD.  It has a carbon fiber frame and makes for a pretty light build, has enough travel for nearly all trail conditions, pedals well enough to climb for hours, and pretty much is darn close to an all around package for the weekend warrior as one could dream of.  Well, it is not really missing since you can go right out and buy one....unless you want one with big wheels.

Then, fuggit' about it.  You can't have it, not because Ibis does not make one...they don't...yet...but you cannot have one because NO ONE MAKES a 29er like this.  This occurred to me as I was riding with a guy that works for Ibis and we were talking about his Mojo.  It was an HD 140 built up with moderate but nice components.  It had 140mm of travel, was pedaling up the paved road we were on with hardly a unwanted wiggle from the DW link rear suspension, had a beefy Fox fork, a slacker head tube angle for all around trail fun, and weighed 27lbs.

You can't buy that type of bike in a 29er.  The closest thing right now is a Santa Cruz Tall Boy and it is lacking in travel and over zealous in the HT angle department.  Riding the recently built Specialized FSR points out how much fun a slacker HT angle and more travel in a good pedaling 29er can be, but it has very nice parts on it and it still weighs 31 pounds.  Too heavy for an all around everyday bike for where I live, but still fun on the right trail.

There has been a lot of noise about more and more, bigger and bigger travel 29ers but I still have my doubts as to how many riders will embrace that.  But I bet a ton of them would ride a 27lb, carbon, FS with great suspension manners, relaxed handling and 120+mm of travel.  If someone will only make one.  26" FS bikes have gone through a refinement process that brought them from shorter travel, steeper angled designs to 33-35 pounders that were waaay overbuilt for the average Joe to something like a Ibis Mojo or carbon Specialized Stumpjumper 26er.

If I were to pick a next direction for 29ers to go, it would be that-a-way.  But so far, no one has asked me.  Till then, in my opinion, something will be missing.