Right, this is the first of several blog posts as I attempt to catch up with telling you (the reader) everything that I’ve been up to since I last posted. It’s been too long, and I’ve been very busy. There is a lot going on at Jones Bicycles this year. It is all good, but the days are flying by. I will, in the next few weeks go in to much greater detail. Today? Here’s a quick summary.
The latest production framesets have arrived. These have been made for me, to very precise specifications, in Taiwan. I am really happy with, and proud of, the quality of the new frames, forks and bars. I now have my bikes made where some of the best bikes in the world are made. It’s what they do there and craftsmanship is up there with the very best, anywhere. It’s not the home-grown ideal I was pursuing but it makes sense – it’s quite the norm in this global village.
The titanium framesets have sold out already – I had a lot of pre-orders to fill – but we can take orders for the next run in July. I do have steel framesets in stock although I’m building them up, building wheels to go with them and fitting components at a rate that might well see them all gone before too long. I’m not complaining. Busy is good. I do plan on a 24″ size in the future (but no date yet).
We do have all variations of H-bars in stock, loop and cut, titanium and aluminum. The Jones 135-F front hub is now available (with angled flanges and the like – more on that soon), I have 50mm and 72mm wide single wall rims in stock for bikes and rolling chassis, and the new steel unicrown forks can be bought for retro-fitting – they work really well on a 26″ bikes to make it a 69er.
There’s a (production) test bike heading out soon to be reviewed by a magazine or two. I’ve been building and test riding all the bikes I’ve been shipping out from here, and I’ve had a few good rides on the first of the titanium production framesets. I built it with a custom choice of parts. I wrapped the h-bars in a new way and I used different bolts in the clamps to reduce the bumps. I’m always tweaking and testing. The ride was good and the bike was great. I didn’t make it up the mountain though – I was too weak (all this work and not enough riding!) but I’ll be going for a lot more rides soon. I’ll get stronger :O)
And I’ve also found some time to explore a few new ideas too. I learned a lot building bikes for Marley and Korbin and I’ve built myself a new bike to try out something a little different. We’re at the test ride stage there and some very interesting findings so far. All of this will be blogged about as soon as I can. It’s all good and we are busier than ever and trying to do our best. Customers have seemed very happy. Positive feedback aplenty. All good stuff.
PS: Since this is just a summary I’ve not done the ‘click for big’ thing – the details will follow.
