R.I.P. 9 First Impressions

Being a 6' 5" tall rider I do not get to many chances to test ride bikes that fit me. This weekend was an exception. I had an opportunity to ride an XL Niner R.I.P. 9. Let's get the parts out of the way first.
  Rear Shock: Fox RP23
  Fork: Fox F29 RL 120mm of travel
  Headset: FSA headset
  Bar: Easton EA50 Monkeybar riser bar
  Stem: Easton EA50
  Crankset: Shimano SLX
  Shifters: Shimano SLX
  Front Derailleur: Shimano SLX bottom swing
  Rear Derailleur: Shimano SLX long cage
  Cassette: Shimano HG61
  Brakes: Avid Juicy 5 160mm rotors front and rear
  Wheelset: Shimano M756 XT hubs to Mavic A317 hubs
  Seatpost: Raceface
  Saddle: WTB

Building the bike went well. Nothing at all unexpected, though it took me slightly longer than normal to tune any chain rub out of the front derailleur. Setting up the front derailleur on the XL size seems a little bit of a challenge than it is on the smaller R.I.P.s. As some of you might not know, on most full suspension bikes the placement of the front derailleur is determined when the rider is on the bike and the suspension is loaded (sagged). It's best to actually set the suspension and ride the bike in order to test shifting. Once I found the sweet spot, the bike shifted great. (For you super-geeks: the placement I had the best luck with was running the derailleur just a hair lower than even standard Shimano recommendation low, just clearing the big ring, about a millimeter gap between the outer cage and the big ring teeth. That done, on to the ride.
The fist thing I noticed is the more enjoyable ride, with 4.5” of rear wheel travel, the R.I.P. smoothed out the ride over rocky terrain. I found myself descending a lot faster than I normally do down steep rocky hills. The bike climbed quite well, with no bouncing, and had good traction. I did notice that I was hitting my pedals off of more things than on my current bike, but I've been putting in a lot of time on the hardtail lately. The Pro Pedal of the RP23 worked very well, better than most of the other bikes I have ridden with it. Accessibility of the lock-out lever wasn't great. (Like most XL bikes, the R.I.P. would benefit from a remote lock out for the rear shock; it was just about impossible to reach the lockout lever, as it was hiding behind my water bottle.) That was a small price to pay for a bike that did everything was well as the R.I.P. did, though. I'll be riding this bike more in the weeks ahead. Oh, sorry no riding pictures. No one could figure out how to work my new camera, but we'll learn them up good for next time.