Fans of ‘the original bearded framebuilder who lives in a shed in the woods’ will be over the moon to hear that Mr Jeff Jones is to come out with a range of steel frames made in Taiwan to his design, bringing the cost of owning one of his radical bikes right down to earth. If you’re not a fan, you won’t care, but don’t harsh their buzz if you don’t. They might even be ‘stoked’.
Raleigh USA
Ellsworth Bikes
Chris King/Cielo Bikes
OK, it’s ‘We got it wrong’ time. When we ran our original Eurobike Story on Chris King’s new GripLock system, we wrongly assumed that King had never been an Aheadset Licensee – turns out it’s been one all along and just didn’t like the tapered split-ring idea. Now it’s come out with what it reckons is a good version of it and it’ll fit all regular 1 1/8th King threadless headsets ever made.
With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)
So Chris King just happens to have perfected his version of the tapered split ring after all these years, at exactly the same time that the patent runs out? So it’s not a financial decision at all huh Chris? I believe you… thousands wouldn’t.
the elsworth is a lot more ugly and looks more hand made than the jones ! The future with the whizzy forks and regression from elsworth, I can see how jonesy makes a living but not elsworth.
how much for Mr Jone’s beard?
So Chris King just happens to have perfected his version of the tapered split ring after all these years, at exactly the same time that the patent runs out? So it’s not a financial decision at all huh Chris? I believe you… thousands wouldn’t.
So are those RST forks aiming at traditional Revelation/F32 territory? Did you get to ride some?
Wireless fork gubbins? Give it a rest.
New Epiphany looks flippin immense though.
Why would you want wireless compression damping adjustment?
How much extra faff is that. “I couldn’t ride today as I forgot to charge my forks up?”
Ugh, horrible horrible Ellsworth.
Does anyone know what gear configuration the Jones steel frames are?
Singlespeed only, either-or, ebb?
Super retro touring/bearded woodman on the one hand, wireless electronics and USB ports on the other.
Something for everyone today. Or something for 2 people, anyway.
Will the Jones Ti spaceframe only come in 29’er flavour, or will he have 26′ as well??? The joys of being not too tall..
Pretty sure he uses EBBs. The caption says they can run SS or gears and there’s no sign of any other tensioning method.
For a proper Jones, don’t you have to run 1×5? 🙂
With the short chainstays and big fork offset (no toe overlap issues) ther’s not a downside for smaller riders.
The limiting factor for short/tall riders is the one size only for the short-term.
medium is small for some of us though!
how much ‘travel’ (or should i say flex) is a Jones frame designed to give you?
surely it can’t be that much or it would require a bit of damping
Anyone know why CK was a licensee of the Aheadset if he wasn’t using it?
I still don’t understand why someone hasn’t done a wireless control for their helmet lamp.
Ellsworth just going from bad to worse.
SOLD!
I’ve got to have one of those steel Jones frames… who do I need to speak to?
I might have to get one of those steel diamond jones frames to go with my Ti spaceframe.
$750 for a frame, fork and EBB unit’s a great price.
That Ellsworth looks a bit unfinished – its like someone got bored once they got to the rear triangle. I’d still like one.
The RST XMO was a good air fork in its day, be interesting to try the new forks
the elsworth is a lot more ugly and looks more hand made than the jones ! The future with the whizzy forks and regression from elsworth, I can see how jonesy makes a living but not elsworth.
re the Jones fork “mudroom anyone” pic – have you a shot of the rear wheel ? Looks a bit tight from side-on
So Ellsworth have run out of ideas then