At the end of 2023 I intimated that perhaps I’d be getting rid of some bikes.
Well, it’s 2024, and as of today I’ve settled all family business:
Barzini…
Philip Tattaglia…
Moe Greene…
Stracci…
Cuneo*…
*[OK, this one wasn’t actually my bike but I did send it back to Classic Cycle and I needed a bike for every name in the scene.]
Each of these bikes is now either with a new owner or in the process of being delivered to a new owner.
Sure, unlike the heads of the Five Families these bicycles were not my enemies–far from it. Each served me well, and some were truly special. For example, the RockCombo was one of the best all-arounders I’ve ever ridden, and the made-to-measure Engin was positively exquisite and a bike I never thought I’d relinquish. But like Michael Corleone I must not let my emotions interfere with business. Also, like any self-respecting bike dork, while I may have “whacked” four bikes, I also used this as an excuse to fill a vacancy and anoint a new capo de tutti capi:
So kiss the hand of the newest member of The Family:
Yes, after a shady backroom deal the Vinershiki will remain on Tenovo turf for the foreseeable future. And while adding a bike when I should be subtracting them may seem like a step backwards, it’s actually a highly calculated move, because having a pristine vintage Italian specimen like this will keep me from doing something reckless like attempting a costly and time-consuming all-out restoration of the Faggin:
Now I can keep it in dirtbag mode like Lob intended.
As for being without a single-speed mountain bike for the first time in many, many years, that’s a big psychological hurdle, but the fact is that I simply don’t have time to spin slowly up to the mountain bike trails these days, whereas the Jones gets me there and back efficiently and in comfort–and then once I am there it gets me up and over everything with (relative) ease:
And while nothing is as mechanically simple as a singlespeed mountain bike, the Jones has been boringly reliable, needing only minor adjustments here and there. I did detect a teeny bit of play in the crank on my ride this past weekend, and while on SRAM/Truvativ/Whatever cranks like these that’s a simple matter of fiddling with the preload adjuster, I did nearly lose the crank on the crabon cyclocross bike not too long ago:
And I realized that in the five years I’ve had this bike I’ve never checked the fixing bolt:
So after years of not thinking about the crank at all, I suddenly decided I had to check it now. Alas, I didn’t have an 8mm hex key on my multitool, but fortunately my ride took me past one of those public bike stands:
Though as it turned out all the hex keys had been stolen:
But at least there were plenty of cone wrenches in case a passing cyclist had a sudden desire to overhaul a loose-bearing hub.
So instead I kept riding, checked the bolt with a torque wrench when I got home, and found it to be as snug as a bug in a rug, which means I had nothing to worry about in the first place.
In any case, the Jones is the most car-like of my bicycles–not because I use it like a car, but because it works extremely well in its stock form and I’m not inclined to tinker with it:
I mean I know plenty of people customize their cars, but I don’t. And yes, I have tinkered with the Jones in the past, like when I rode it with Rivendell bars and a friction shifter for awhile:
It was a fun experiment, but ultimately Jeff Jones got the bike exactly right, and beyond adding accessories or whatever there’s really no point in messing with it or second-guessing him. This bike will also absorb all the riding I’d otherwise have done on the singlespeeds or the RockCombo, and I know it will do so as readily as those fat-ass tires absorb rough terrain:
But remember, plus-sized tires like this are totally out of style:
Because they “dumb down” the trail:
Whereas a bike like this doesn’t dumb it down at all:
This is like saying large print dumbs down books when you spend 16 hours a day watching TikTok.
Mountain bikers really are the worst.
When I love a bike, I’m always curious about what people are saying about it on The Internets, and I’m always deeply disappointed. Besides that stupid article about plus-sized tires, another thing I’ll sometimes come across when reading about Jones bikes in particular is something along the lines of:
The Jones complete bikes are like totally overpriced because they only come with NX but the [WhateverBikes IronicName] comes with GX and costs less.
Right. It’s certainly not a bike for everyone, but assuming you are looking for a bike like this–that is to say a rigid do-anything bike with full off-roadability that’s designed to accept modern components–which do you think is a better value? The bike that a bearded bike freak has been obsessively refining for years and years and years at this point and that forms the basis of his entire company and upon which he’s staked his entire reputation? Or the suspension-corrected novelty bike from a giant company that has like 400 different other models too but uses contrived irreverence in its marketing materials and comes with a derailleur that costs $20 more?
But my favorite dumb thing of all that mountain bike people say on the Internet is that mechanical dick breaks suck:
I certainly get that there are people who prefer hydraulic brakes for various reasons, which is totally fair. I also get that because of the perverse things designers are doing with bikes now the cables pretty much have to be hydraulic:
[Oh, please, you asked for it you Mountain Wankers.]
But assuming a “normal” bike I have no idea what kind of setup mistakes people are making to conclude that mechanical disk brakes somehow “suck” or are inadequate to slow or stop an off-road bicycle with precision.
This is about the point at which people on the Internet will then say “Well you don’t ride hard enough,” which, based on what I’m seeing out there, is the hub calling the headset black.
But yes, the Jones is a remarkable machine. Put some fenders on there and you could commute on it all week and then disappear into the wilderness for the weekend without changing a thing:
I sometimes find myself fantasizing about the customs, but the bike’s so ridiculously competent and fun as is I realize that’s the last thing I need, and five years later it’s basically exactly as it was when it first came out of the box:
I am jealous of the kickstand mount on the V3 bikes though.