After 4 dates with Jones...

So I've been riding like a fiend lately, which is unusual for me. I'm normally a 1 ride a week kinda guy. I squeezed a ride in last Thurs. (Which I talked about in my previous post), I went out again on Friday, which was a super short ride with a buddy, but we ran into more than the usual amount of riders on the trails this time. Wouldn't you know it; everybody wanted to know about the strange bike I was riding. One guy asked me what the deal with the fork is. "Is it shaped that way so you could hang a basket up front?" ... Ok, he was probably joking!!? Another guy asked me what size the front wheel was and later started telling me about other trails in the area where I might have a hard time since I don't have suspension. Anyway, all the chatting got me in trouble with the Mrs. (And my kids) cause I ended up being really late picking them up from camp.

I took it out 2 more times for some more decent sized rides and this is what I can tell you about the Jones ride.

Like I mentioned earlier, I usually don't ride much more than once or twice a week. Usually my body gets beat up, my back starts to get stiff and I need a few days off to do other forms of physical activity. Back to back days, were specially hard for me, but for some reason I can do it on the Jones. It's hard to believe that a rigid bike can be more comfortable than my full suspension bike ever was! My hardtail that came when my FS frame bit the dust had Reynolds 853 and 631 tubing, which is also known for its smoothness. To be honest; when I first considered the Jones I wished it was made out of the Reynolds tubing and not the 4130 it comes in. I think it's the magical Jones geometry that is to be thanked. The large tires have a lot to do with it too. I guess it's fair to say that it's not just the frame, or the fork, or the bar... The whole bike is a system, a combination of all these ideas that work together as a unit. Even the unusual use of a 135mm front hub can be felt when leaning heavily into a corner. I haven't found the limit of how fast I can take a corner yet on this bike, I have to build up more confidence in myself first. All I know is that I'm well past the abilities of my old bikes with the Jones. I did however find the lower limit of my correct tire pressure on the Ardent 2.4. I initially ran it at 16 psi on that 45mm Velocity Dually rim. I pinch flatted on the 3rd ride. Now I keep it at around 18psi. The front wheel with the Surly Knard 3.0 seems to be doing well with 10.5 psi. I did increase the pressure to 11.5 psi just to see if I notice any difference. I did not.

I figured out the climbing position with the Loop bars too. I find that If I keep my hands on the widest part of the bar and at the same time lean my chest forward over the bar more I could make it up some pretty steep pitches with a good amount of control and comfort. It feels like my wrists are bending more than they would on a normal riser bar, but it doesn't feel uncomfortable... it just takes a few rides to get used to.

I have yet to measure this observation, but I've noticed quite a bit more pedal striking on this bike. The Bottom Bracket must be lower than all my previous bikes. I do like the control the low position seems to give me, maybe I'll play with moving the headset spacers to the bottom of the head tube to raise it a bit. This would also slacken the head tube angle slightly. Jeff also recommended shorter cranks, which I was reluctant to agree to. I never had cranks shorter than 175mm. These now are 170mm. I remember having 170mm cranks on my first ever mountain bike, a 1993 Specialized Rock Hopper. I felt uncomfortable pedaling that bike and switched the cranks out for 175's.  This felt better to me, but later I think it had more to do with those pesky Biopace chainrings than the crank arm length. I have to say that Jeff was right. The 170's on the Jones do feel great!

Are there any negative traits? Well, so far I've only found a minor one. The ESI Chunky grips have a few rips in them already due to scraping against trees in some tighter sections of trail. The increased pedal strikes maybe, but I do like the stability of the low BB, so I'll count that as a trade off.
I find that I can bunny hop this bike quite well, which is surprising to me, cause I was never that comfortable bunny hopping a 26er with the seatpost fully extended.

Another little plus to the Spaceframe design, the little curved tube that extends from the top tubes to the seat tube makes for a comfortable little perch to sit on when waiting for your riding buddies to catch up.

Jones Space Frame first impressions

So it's been a few years of "saving up for a new bike". The whole process was a lesson in patience. As any parent and home owner will tell you, something always comes up...

But let's skip all that and get to the important stuff:
I received the complete Jones Spaceframe bike in the mail last week. I heard the Fed Ex truck and got up from my slumber only to find a note saying that I wasn't home. WHAT??!!
Anyway, after pointlessly calling and asking if the driver can just come back, I decided that one more day wouldn't kill me. (But it was killing me inside!)
The timing was also not the best cause I had my brother and his wife visiting with us from Austria. There really wasn't an ooportunity to take it out on a real ride. I did manage to assemble it that night, after everyone went ro sleep!

Anyway, a bunch of other stuff happened.. Fast forward...fast forward... Ok ride time.

It was a Thursday afternoon. I skipped my "breakfast" -(Night shift jargon) as I only had about an hour to be back for kid pickup duties.

Bike build can be found here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxSrOEDV1Ox8MXBaOW43U0FYMS1vZ2tpWE9JUnE5WXNpeDk4/edit?usp=docslist_api

To get to the trailhead I start with a series of short but steep road climbs.  These felt hard with the big tire and 32/18 gear, but I think it had to do with the 3 weeks off the bike!
I was distracted by the many hand positions that were suddenly available to me. I wasn't used to having my hands that close to my body when on the widest part of the bars. The narrower sections were OK for the streets. Once I hit the singletrack I could immediately feel the stability of the bike. Even on rocky sections. I could pretty much bomb through. The wide tires felt like they were really hugging the rocks and I didn't once break loose. I had the Surly Knard up front pumped up to 10.5 psi. And the 2.4 Ardent at 16 psi. (I weigh 157 lbs)
The bike comes with a proprietary 135mm wide front hub which is the only size that will fit into the super stiff Jones fork. I've never felt more confident leaning a bike down in fast corners. It really does feel stiffer than even a 20mm through axle. Yet the ride was more comfortable and smoother than any rigid bike had any right to be.

Being only 5'6" presents the challenge that I can't really get the bars level with the seat. This is so different than any bike I've owned. My seat was always a few inches higher than my bars. Contrary to popular thought, this did not hamper the handling of the bike. The only trouble I did experience had more to do with the bars than the bar height. When standing to climb really steep pitches I didn't quite know where to place my hands and I felt I would have had more leverage on a regular 740 mm riser bar. I think with a little more ride time this problem would sort itself out.

I need to ride it a bit more. I'll report back after a few more rides.

The end of an era: The Intense Tracer gets a major overhaul

                                          more pictures here!

My circa 1999 Intense Tracer will get a major operation before this Summer. In fact, when it's all said and done, it will be a completely different bike! Don't get me wrong, it has served me very well over the last err... 13 years (gasp!) but frankly, it's waaay past it's freshness date and it has been for the last 5 or more years. Suspension was (and still is) all the rage when I got this bike, but after years of flogging on rocky trails, it sounds like a ricketty rocking chair now. Even the manufacturer can't help cause all the suspension parts are at this point obsolete. (heck, they've moved on to a few different suspension designs since.)   Rant Alert!! Intense makes awesome bikes to this day, but their customer service left MUCH to be desired!   So this time I'm moving away from a squishy rear end in favor of a rigid, nostalgic Reynolds Chromoly steel frame by Cotic. http://www.cotic.co.uk/product/BFe 
Now my first choice for a new bike would have been a fully rigid, single speed, steel Space Frame and truss fork bike by Jeff Jones http://www.jonesbikes.com/production_framesets.html 
But that will have to wait... A mortgage, 2 kids and a lack of $$ will put a damper on the toys.

I will be chronicling the build here as it goes along and will share with you the events as they take place. I hope it goes smoothly, but I can already tell there will be compatibility issues. After all, this is a totally different frame we are talking about here.

Let me fill you in on what's transpired prior to this posting: I've looked at Cotic back in 2010. The Intense's suspension link bolt stripped and I pretty much thought the frame was done for. I was sick of all the extra maintenance the suspension required, cause i had just changed out all the bearings a few months before. I read a write up on one of their models called the "Soul" in "What Mountain Bike" magazine. It looked like the kind of bike I'd be interested in. I wanted a hardtail that was capable of running a bigger fork than what most xc oriented hardtails were sporting at the moment. I emailed Paul at Cotic and asked him a few questions about the frames. He was very gracious and patient, even enthusiastic about answering these questions. (He was also an Intense owner at one time.) When I found out about the BFe (Beefy! Get it?) and it's alleged hard hitting antics, like the ability to run a 6in. Fork, I was even more interested! At this time there was no US distributor in place. Fast Forward a few weeks and I met a friend on the trails that later was able to machine the damaged suspension parts of my Tracer... My Intense was resuscitated for a few more years! Paul wished me the best and I happily kept beating on my bike whenever I could, but as most of you probably know, moving parts just wear out over time. Now I don't even know where all the creaking is coming from anymore, hence a good excuse to use some tax return $$ for this project.

I am currently dealing with Niall (Neil) Cotic's newly installed US Distributor. We have settled on a Small Cyan BFe frame and some various new doodads to make it all work. (Frankly, quite a few more than anticipated) To those of you still here... I'll keep you posted!