Interbike 2010: Jones Bikes, King, Ellsworth and magic RST forks

Press Launch

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Jones Bikes

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’.

Looks like a Jones bike, it is a Jones bike. Only now you can afford it.
The first of the three frame lineup will be the $3800 titanium space frame frame and fork.

Here's the big steel fork. All Jones forks are 135mm spacing and will take a snow tyre, or 29er.

Mudroom anyone?

Now this is going to send Jones fans into rapture. A steel truss fork - with Jones' clever geometry and built-in flex.

Just like the original Ti frame, there's some built-in frame-flex in this 29er spaceframe. Gears or singlespeed - only one size initially (a medium with a 23in TT)

In another good move, you will be able to get Jones' loop bar by Christmas. The ally one weighs less than the Ti one, and costs loads less.US price is $120.
Ever the non-marketeer, Jeff only made these bikes in 'non-photoshoot friendly' black on black. Did we mention the price? Frame and fork will be a not-unreasonable $1500. Expect it to cost more in the UK, but way less than anything from Jones in the past. Jeff is currently working out UK distribution and we'll let you know when he's got it sussed.
Under all of these frame bags is the new Jones regular diamond frame bike and big fork. Prices will start at $750.

Raleigh USA

Not the Raleigh we know. And not the 'normal' UCI World Champ stripes - that's because this model is the Singlespeed Cross World Champs model.

Ellsworth Bikes

Ellsworth has been busy with the badge-making machine. Neat.
The early '90s called to say that they're back. Purple and blue meets flared headtubes in crazy new/old mix

Chris King/Cielo Bikes

A super retro touring machine courtesy of Cielo bikes from Chris King. We assume you can only ride this while helmetless and smoking a Lucky Strike.
The Chris King Griplock system. A retrofit for all 1 1/8th King headsets

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.

What better way for Surly to show how its 300lb carrying trailer at work than to make people schlep their friends around the Dirt Demo in 40degree heat.

RST Forks

This is RST's new all-mountain fork. The left side has an adjustable fork progression adjustment, much like the old Manitou SPV system used to work.
And on the right of the fork crown is a Rockshox-style damping gate dial. The best of two worlds?
A 6in fork for your next bike perhaps? RST just has to get over its rather cheap image in the UK and it could go far.
Looks like a piggyback shock, but no. This is a rear air shock with a wirelessly operated lockout from the handlebars.
Unscrew the fork crown to reveal the USB charging port for the fork's wireless damping control.
The control, showing the degree of fork compression, plus the on/off status of the rear shock lockout. Did we mention it's wireless?
No more fishing around for the lockout lever between your knees.
The RST fork - the wireless controller tells the fork how much compression damping to have - all the way up to full lockout.
The prototype thumb lever. Left and right for fork compression, up and down for rear shock lock and unlock. There is a wire - but only to the screen. Early days yet, so expect it to look neater in production.

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

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.)

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