Transcript 0:00 Welcome, listeners. Uh, today we got a special guest with Jeff Jones. 0:04 But before I get into that, I wanna kinda talk about a current trend in the mountain bike and, to some extent, the fat bike industry, and that's the, the long, low, and slack geometry. 0:16 In other words, bikes have been getting longer top tubes or reach numbers, uh, the bottom brackets have been getting lower, and the head tube angles have been getting more slack on most mountain bikes. 0:26 The other big trend are shorter chainstays and steeper s- steeper seat tube angles. All of these trends add up to what many describe as, quote-unquote, progressive or modern mountain bike geometry. 0:37 In contrast, you have Jeff Jones, and specifically his Jones Plus bike, and this seems to buck a lot of the modern geometry trends. 0:46 Um, up front, the Jones Plus has a 67-and-a-half degree head tube angle, which isn't odd compared to many current mountain bikes, but the Jones Plus uses a fork specifically made for it with seventy-six millimeters of offset. 1:00 Um, that's in contrast to most forks coming out on other bikes, which are either forty-six millimeters or fifty-one millimeters of offset. 1:06 Uh, another interesting thing is that the seat tube angle on a Jones Plus is a slack seventy-one degrees compared to the more traditional seventy-three degree measurement, and also the current trend towards steeper seat tube angles like a seventy-five or a seventy-six degree seat tube angle. 1:22 While almost every other manufacturer is racing to see how short they can make the chainstays on their bikes, the chainstays on the Jones Plus are nineteen inches compared to a lot of the other bikes, which are in the sixteen and a half to eighteen-inch range. 1:34 So we can see from looking at certain specific numbers in isolation, uh, that there appears to be a big difference between, quote-unquote, modern mountain bike geometry and the Jones Plus bike. 1:45 However, once you start rolling on a Jones, you find you're on a very capable bike that is quick-handling yet stable and playful but forgiving. How the heck does that work? 1:53 That is why we're gonna talk more to Jeff Jones and find out what he has going on with his bikes. So without further ado, let's jump right into the interview. Welcome, Jeff Jones. Um, it's really exciting to talk to you. 2:05 Um, I've been a big admirer of your bikes for a lot of years. Uh, everything from, you know, your space frame bikes also up to the more recent, uh, Jones Plus. 2:15 But, uh, if, if you look at the, um, the geometry on your bike versus a lot of other bikes, it seems like the numbers are kinda different, so that's why we, we wanted to end up having you on, so that you could talk about sort of the concept and instead of just sort of nitpicking one particular dimension of the bike, uh, talk about it as a whole of how you're designing these and how it works, um, altogether. 2:40 Because a lot of times when we talk about just one dimension, let's say head tube angle or seat tube angle or whatever, it, it really-- it-- that can be very misleading about how a bike can actually ride. 2:49 So, um, we can really start off anywhere you want, but, um, let's, you know, maybe kick off with the, the front of the bike because you're doing some things with a lot longer rake fork. 3:01 So if you could explain wh- why you're doing that, um, and what that brings to the, the ride, that'd be awesome. Well, the, the rake is all, um, 3:13 it's all one part of the number to, to get the rider and the wheelbase and everything where I thought it would be best for how I like to ride and how I think a lot of people wanna ride. Um, it needed to be that number. 3:30 So I'm, I'm kind of-- I look at the bike as kind of, um, having 3:36 essentially three things in the geometry, and that is the wheelbase, figure out the wheelbase, and then you have the rider, uh, and their center of gravity, or, or the, the cranks, um, where's that, you know, between the wheels, and then, um, 3:53 uh, steering geometry. Actually, three things. It's the, it's the, uh, the wheelbase, where the rider is over the wheelbase, and then steering geometry. So, um, I wanted to have a longer wheelbase on this bike. 4:08 I wanted to have the front wheel out in front. I wanted to have the back wheel out in back. I wanted to have 4:14 the short reach that I've been doing on my bikes for years, on my, on my twenty-nine-inch wheel bikes, and even my early, uh, earlier bikes that were twenty-six-inch wheel. I had a very, very short reach to the bars. 4:24 This bike has a really short reach to the bars. So if I design the bike with less offset... Well, for one thing, there'd be no point in it. The, the, the idea is to build a frame and a fork to work together 4:36 in harmony, to give the geometry for the rider, for what you're doing. Um, but most of the time, bikes are designed around a suspension fork, uh, basically. 4:47 So even if the bike is a rigid bike, generally it's designed around what a suspension fork, uh, s- would be, so that if a, if there's a fork out there, it'll be compatible on the bike. 4:57 So you kinda-- Most bikes are locked into having less offset, so that's the reason why most bikes have this less off- less offset. 5:04 It's not because they, you know, the frames might not, uh, benefit if you were to-- or the whole rider and the whole package might not benefit from more offset. 5:11 It's just that if you're using a suspension fork, or if you might be using a suspension fork, you need to design the frame for a fork with the length of a suspension fork and the rake or offset of a suspension fork. 5:24 Um, and since I'm not bound by that, 'cause I specifically decided years ago, after I rode twenty-nine-inch wheels on some wider rims and realized I don't need suspension anymore, uh, at least for how I ride and, and where I ride and everything I've been doing, then, um, 5:40 then, then I don't need to design my frames for suspension. So, so my twenty-nine-inch wheel bikes have had fifty-five millimeters of offset in the forks of rake, um, which is, uh, more than normal. 5:52 It originally was around thirty-eight to forty-five on most bikes, uh, when twenty-niners first were being made. And what this did is this gave the front end, uh, gave me, gave me more toe clearance. 6:04 It, it gave me a shorter reach to the bars. 6:05 It made it more comfortable and upright.Um, because the geometry of bikes have just, in my opinion, been too stretched out and leaned over, too much weight on the hands, too much like a road racing bike, which is what they were modeled on anyway, and all the rules and the early racers were 6:21 road oriented. Um- So- So you're asking me to start with the front. Well, I guess, um- Yeah... 6:30 so, you know, when I, when I look at your, like, the head tube angle and then the amount of fork rate that you've got, it- Mm... 6:35 th- if you do the trail calculations on it, the, the trail figure is pretty normal compared to a lot of other bikes that, um, have much less rake. Um- That's right. 6:46 So, so, so the bike is very normal, it's just it gets... If, if you look at a bike from 6:52 f- fork offset, for example, th- and, and you start thinking about fork offset and head angles, like, for a long time there was only one offset in forks or only a couple offset in forks and, uh, so for, you know, a decade or so it was like this. 7:06 And then, uh, people would get it in their heads and, and people would talk about bikes like, "Oh, a 70 head angle is just about right. A 71 is kind of twitchy, and a 69 head angle is, like, kind of slackish." 7:17 Um, that's only if you have a 26 inch-- That only- that's only if you had the 26-inch wheel with the same amount of offset that you've always been having, but as soon as you switch to a 29-inch wheel, now all of a sudden the trail h- decreases, it gets twitchier, the handling changes, everything's different. 7:31 So what did the first 29ers do? They went to a steeper... Yeah, steeper head angle. Actually, no, it went, um, with the bigger wheel... I get it backwards sometimes. [laughs] With the bigger wheel it, um, 7:43 it slowed down, so they steepened the head angle, uh, but then this kind of leaned you onto the front end, reduced toe overlap, and you had to l- the reason it leans you over onto your f- hands is because if you don't have a lot of toe overlap, I mean, if you don't have a lot of toe clearance, 7:57 um, then one way to get toe clearance is to steepen the seat angle and leng- or lengthen, and/or lengthen the top tube, and then this will open up the toe clearance. 8:10 And, uh, 29ers had, uh, not much when they first came out. 8:12 So with this plus bike, having a bigger wheel and then I want this longer wheelbase, like I said, s- instead of, instead of thinking about I want this head angle or this fork offset, it's about thinking about I want this wheelbase, I want the rider here, I wanna be sitting, standing here, holding on here, holding on... 8:28 Standing in the cran- standing on the cranks here w- with my rear end able to sit here, with my hands and handlebar able to clamp into this position so I can ride it r- right around here. And to get all these positions, 8:42 all you have to do is come up with, you know, you have the wheel size, the, um, what kind of head angle and fork offset do you need to put the front wheel where you want it with the geometry that you need? 8:51 And this is how bikes had always, always been designed before suspension forks. And also, um, I guess in road bikes they've kind of settled down to standard geometries too. I don't know. 9:01 Well, now they're, they're, they're all over the place, actually. I mean- [laughs]... people talk about it and there's all kinds of stuff. 9:05 It's just that in- with suspension forks it seems to be a little more locked in, so, um, since road bikes don't have suspension, they're not suspension corrected, so that's probably why we see the more of that. Mm-hmm. 9:15 So there. But then, of course, if you don't think about this and you go out and switch a fork, you have to be ready for what's gonna happen. 9:21 You might end up with a longer front center and you think that makes it more stable, but now your trail's very small and, um, the bike's twitchy or something. Yep. Yeah, it can bring up- A lot of people wanna run-... 9:31 some things off. Yeah, yeah. We, we have a lot of, uh, a lot of people calling to... They wanna put the trust fork on, um, our trust fork on their, you know, fat bike or 29 or something. 9:40 But we usually have to say, "It's gonna lower the front end, steepen your head angle, um, reduce your trail. It's gonna get twitchy. You're gonna be leaning over more. It's, like, nothing... I don't recommend it." 9:49 Mm-hmm. Because their bikes are designed with a, a longer, a longer fork with less rake, so. 9:55 So w- with the, the extra rake in the fork, um, it sounded like, you know, you gain a lot more clearance for, to avoid toe overlap. Um, so that's one big piece. But, um, it also... 10:07 You know, you've kind of alluded to it a couple times, but it sounds like it also ends up increasing, um... I don't wanna necessarily call it stability, but, uh, [laughs] you, you avoid the endo factor considerably more. 10:18 It's, it's kind of like- Yeah... what happens with a lot of bikes now, where they're going with the longer reach figures on the bike to... and then going with a very short stem to try to put the f- Mm... 10:27 the front wheel a little further out there. It's the same thing. Yeah. The, it, it's about body position over wheelbase, and then it depends on how are you going to do it. 10:35 So if you're, if you, if you have a fork offset with a maximum offset of, what is it? I don't know what it is now. 50, 100 something. I think it's like 51, 52 millimeters. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. 10:44 And, um, then... And you wanna have a pretty quick handling, then the best, then you're, then you're gonna wanna run a l- uh, the steepest head angle you can, uh, especially if you're using a bigger wheel, 10:56 and then you're gonna need a shorter stem. So this is-- It's just different ways to do it. 11:00 I've sat there and played, uh, a- and done drawings where I'll, I'll just see how extreme can I go in different directions and still have the trail work out, and it's amazing how all over-- how you can just be all over the place. 11:11 There's bikes that have, you know, backwards-looking front ends, but they still have- [laughs]... proper balance in riding, um, out there. And, uh, so it's, it's about the rider over the bike. 11:23 So again, it was like, you know, axles, where the axles are, which is where the contact point's gonna be on the ground, and then, uh, you know, below that, and then where, where's the bottom bracket and the rider? 11:34 And I, I like to s- sit upright a little bit more and sit further back on my feet. 11:38 I do not believe that a hunched over, leaned over position with a lot of weight on my hands in a position waiting for an aerodynamic sprint at the end of some race that I'm not doing- [laughs]... 11:47 is beneficial to be in because it hurts my hands, it makes me more likely to endo, broken collarbones everywhere, you know. Um, where if I can stand up on my feet, I can, I... 11:57 This is how, uh, kind of downhill riders, motorcycle riders, BMX riders ride, a little more up on the feet. 12:03 Then I can take jumps and bumps and a lot of vibration out on the trail-And my, uh, hands, which aren't really set up for leaning on all day, aren't getting thrashed by leaning on them all day. 12:15 So instead I'm kind of standing there riding around like, like somebody on a horse or something- Mm-hmm... in the stirrups with nothing on the reins. 12:20 And, um, so to get the head tube way back or to get the reach really short, 12:27 I need-- and to keep the front wheel way out there, I just need to increase the fork offset slack and the head angle, and then-- and that, that just gives me the right-- puts the front wheel in the right place- 12:37 So- For this. Yeah. So I mean- It's about, it's about designing the whole, the whole frame and fork to work together. Um, go ahead, yeah. 12:46 Well, I was gonna say, so I mean, it, it-- basically one of the, one of the motifs you keep kind of going back to is the, the balance of the whole bike. 12:52 So, you know, you've, you've kind of shortened your reach, you've put the front end a little bit further out there. So how does the-- how does like your chain stay length play into that also? 13:01 Because, you know, as far as published figures go, it looks like your chain stays are a lot longer than, um, what is kind of, you know, more modern or, you know, a lot of bikes are going with. Yeah. 13:12 I mean, it seems like it's kind of a, a race from some manufacturers to get their chain stays as short as they possibly can because it's supposed to have these magical properties to make the bike, you know, this- Well, it does. 13:21 I mean, it, it's a, it's a trendy thing and, and, and it, it has good ideas behind it. 13:25 And I, on my twenty-nine-inch wheel bike, I was basically-- and I did, I built it with the shortest chain stay I felt like I could build while still using like a two point five tire on a fifty-millimeter rim without going to plate-type chain stays, and I got to around like seventeen-inch with, um, center-to-center measurement. 13:43 This is not horizontal rear center measurement. This is actual chain stay length along the line of the, um-- from center to bottom bracket to rear axle. And, and it's good because you can lift the front end really easy. 13:57 It, it does make the bike snappy and maneuverable because you can just t-turn it and twist it really fast. Uh, but it also sits you right on top of the rear wheel for a rougher ride, makes the front end lift too easily. 14:07 Um, and if the back end gets sideways, you actually will get sideways rapidly. Mm-hmm. And it can just spin out. You know, it's like a short wheelbase car. 14:16 You get sideways in a short wheelbase car, you're gonna-- it's hard to hold it. Where with a longer-- like a limousine, they'll just, you know, drift all over the place. And, uh, a-and I learned this on tandems. 14:27 You know, tandems you can get really sideways and it's just, it's not even scary. Mm-hmm. Um, 14:32 so with this longer rear end and the longer front end and I'm sitting in the middle, um, and, and also but still wanting to have a bike-- like a lot of people say, "Oh, long, long rear end can't do a wheelie." 14:43 Well, that's if you put a long rear end on a bike with, quote, you know, norm-norma-NORBA geometry with a steep seventy-three seat angle, seventy-one head angle or whatever. 14:51 And you get on this bike and, and just stick a nineteen-inch chain stay on it, then the front end will feel like it's stuck to the ground because you're, you're leaned over, you're hunched over, you have a lot of weight on your hands, your hands are pushing on the front end, your pelvis is forward because you have this steep seat angle. 15:06 Everything's-- and, and then you have the front axle's more underneath your hands is putting your weight more on the front axle. So, you know, the back wheel, um, it just doesn't, it doesn't work out. 15:16 But on, on this-- so you can't, so you can't do a wheelie. Sorry to jump in here, but, uh, Jeff and I ended up getting into the weeds a little bit with this next little section, so I edited it out. 15:26 Um, and when we come back in, Jeff is going to start talking about comparing his body position on, uh, two of his different bikes with different seat angles and setback seat posts. 15:36 So he's going to jump in with his twenty-niner bike, and he'll be transitioning to talking about his twenty-nine plus, uh, bike here. Yeah, seventy-two seat angle with a setback seat post 15:48 and a twenty-three inch effective top tube. But then when I ride my plus, which is about the same size fit-wise, it has a twenty-four inch top tube now, but a straight seat post and a seventy-one seat angle. 15:59 But the seat's in about the same exact place, almost nearly in the same place because the, um... it, it-- slacker seat angle 16:08 offset by a straight seat post where normally you would have a s- a setback seat post with a steeper seat angle. And then the top tube also gets a little bit longer. But then the reach, uh, stays about the same. Um, 16:19 but then to balance it, it's like a car. 16:21 I mean, if you're making a mid-engine car and you make the wheelbase longer, you're not just going to make the front or the rear longer, you kind of do it equally or per-- by percentages or something. Um, so, 16:31 uh, and now as far as the long rear end, uh, since you're sitting further back and your hands are higher and your reach isn't as far forward, your bottom's basically further back. 16:38 Now you're standing up, so you can kind of tug a wheelie out of the bike pretty easily. 16:43 You can loft the front end, you can lift it up over things, you can lift it and then do a bunny hop or what people are calling a J-hop these days, I guess. Front wheel first, then back wheel. 16:51 Because, um, because you're, you're already far enough back, you're already pre-leaned back, so. Uh, and then when you're going down a steep hill like you were saying, 16:59 since the front axle's so far out in front of you and you're already leaned back, you can go down just ridiculously steep things and without any feeling or fear of going over the bars because, 17:11 I mean, you're, you're leaned back more than you could be on anything. And then if you, and if you, uh-- except for maybe a tandem or something. [laughs] And then if you, uh, lower the seat, uh, then you're really low. 17:21 So I-- I mean, I go out and I ride these trails where these guys are taking dirt bikes out and Jeeps and things and, and, uh, they have some very, very steep trails that I cannot ride up at all, but I'll ride down them when, when the traction's okay. 17:33 And, uh, on the plus, it's just a completely different story than when I was on my shorter wheelbase twenty-nine. 17:39 But my twenty-nine did a lot better than the first bikes I was riding on these trails, which were some older bikes that I had from when I had a bike shop, 17:46 and they had normal steeper geometry, and they were scary because I was-- my, my Jones bike had at least a seventy head angle, my point nine and a fifty-five millimeter offset. Um, 17:57 so that put you in a se- in a seventy-two seat angle and a very short reach. So you're very far back on my Jones twenty-nine bike. 18:02 So my plus bike is essentially the same concept of a shorter reach to the bar, more upright position, lower bottom bracket, and a lot lower than they're going today. Mm-hmm. And at least I think it is. 18:13 I don't knowDepending on if you're adding compression into it or something. Yeah. Um, but everybody- It gets complicated pretty quick... suspension. Yeah, and, um, all that. 18:22 So it's, it's just a, it's a whole bike because, I mean, when you ride, of course, when you're riding a bike, you're experiencing the ride. You're not looking at your bike. You're, you're... What do you think I mean? 18:33 It's the ride. It's the ride. It's the ride. That's all it is. It's like, why else-- So why am I, you know, don't obsess about all this other stuff. 18:39 It was when I was obsessing about stuff that it was early on in my first bike designs that I was just making stuff around suspension corrected forks for my customers, 18:48 and some of those first bikes, I had a s- I had space frame and truss forks that I did with, uh, with, uh, suspension corrected geometry where I matched a suspension fork 18:58 geometry, um, to the, to the truss fork, and I made the truss fork the same, and this way the rider could go back and forth. But I could see I had to give them a steeper seat angle. I had to give them... 19:08 And if you look at all the kind of most of the first 29ers that came out, steeper seat angle, longer top tube. Mm-hmm. Why would you want to lean over more? 19:18 [laughs] You know, why would you w- the only reason it was there is because if they kept the s- if you kept the seat angle slack and kept the top tube short but then steepened the head angle like you had to to get the handling a little better 19:30 with the current offset that was available on the forks, which was designed for a 26-inch wheel- Mm-hmm... 19:35 um, then you'd have a tremendous toe overlap, which a lot of people ended up with because they didn't realize until after they made the bike that this was going to happen. 19:41 And, um, so then you steepen the seat angle to 74 and a half or something, and now, now you get to look at your geometry and say, "Oh, look, I still get the c- the t- whatever, 23 and a half, 24-inch top tube that I'm used to," except for you've actually gone further forward and your reach is extended because you now have a steeper seat angle than you previously had. 20:00 Um, so then you end up with more weight on your hands, and I don't think that's very comfortable. So I'm just trying to... 20:06 I'm, uh, I'm going after the one thing, which is the ride, the ride I think a lot of people want to do, which is going out and riding, having fun, riding as far as they can 20:14 on any kind of terrain that they choose, you know, as safely as they can but, you know, still as, like, fast and efficiently as you can, all while, you know, being comfortable and having a reliable machine. Uh, 20:29 so that's why the bike is like this, and, and the numbers or the chainstay or the, or the, the head angle and seat angle and all that stuff, like I said, it's kind of about... 20:39 If, if-- Did you see my j- uh, Long Ranger bike? Did I send you a link to that? I, I, I've seen it before, but I didn't-- you didn't send a link to it. Um, yeah, that's, that's really interesting. Okay. 20:47 I got, I have it in my blog. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. 20:49 That, that was a bike, and you might have seen it in the video where I, I, I brought it out and showed it and then kind of showed the progression of bike design almost from that because I had looked at that and considered this as like 21:01 a, as inspiration because that Chinese workhorse bike was kind of an evolution of design for a bicycle that was made for the l- like, hauling a load, being comfortable, being reliable, 21:15 riding on all terrain, except for the thing just weighed a lot, terrible brakes, skinny tires. 21:21 [laughs] But then, uh, the geometry was quite inspiring, and also I realized it was very similar to what I was doing on my, uh, 26- and 29-inch wheel bikes, which was slacker seat angle, more fork offset, shorter reach, more sweep in the bars. 21:33 It was like, wow, this is all, this all makes sense, and this is how bikes had been a lot in a lot of the bike history, uh, before they went into racing. 21:40 It was only when, um, the road racers, like, came into mountain biking that we'd-- everyone decided we need a 150 millimeter stem and a steep seat angle and a long reach. 21:49 But, um, I'm glad to see it getting more upright and more comfortable with bent seat tubes and a more rearward position, more comfortable positions instead of this, you know, old idea of being, like, totally leaned over in the attack position with tons of weight on your hands and your knee over pedal spindle because it's some rule or something, which I don't think it is. 22:07 [laughs] Um... 22:09 Well, if, if, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but if I'm hearing you correctly, it sounds like, you know, by having this, um, body position where you're a little bit further back, you're not totally stretched out, you've got a lot more range of motion out of your upper body so that you can basically move on the bike fore and aft, um- Yeah. 22:27 Yeah... to adjust your position, you know, and get your weight distribution right for if you're going uphill, if you're going downhill, if you want to pop the front wheel, if you want to do whatever. Yeah. Yeah. 22:34 Your, your- Um, the ability to move around on the bike- Yeah... allows the bike to really get that lively feel. It's not about, you know, [laughs] keeping the chainstay short or looking at one particular dimension. 22:47 No, and that's the funny thing because I, I s- what I've seen is a lot of the time, 22:52 you know, 'cause, uh, nobody wants to rock the boat, so they'll say, "Okay, all the numbers that everybody's using in their fit formulas and kits must be all right. 22:58 We're not going to say anything about it, so let's just tweak the bikes, but we're going to keep all this stuff the same." 23:03 And I've had a few customers who have bought my frames, and they go out and they, uh, g- have a fitting done, and then they set up the bike, and they call me up, and they say they like it, but it's still, it has some issues. 23:12 And then I'll, I'll ask them about the fit, and it's just they're so far off from where I want them to be. Their stem's way too long. They're using a, a straight seat post with a seat slammed forward or something. 23:20 Mm-hmm. Um, so the, the, the position, we have to think about why we're in the position to begin with, like what was it all about and everything and, um, and, um, what, what it was for before isn't what we're... 23:37 I don't want to speak for everyone out there, but it's not what I, I t- maybe I'm just-- I talk to people who buy my bikes, so of course they're looking for a bike that's comfortable, they can ride all day, they want it to be efficient, they don't want to work too hard, they're not too worried about fashion, um, and they're not out to go hucking and doing big doubles and things like that- [laughs]... 23:53 and just ride parks where the trails are ma- where they... And I was reading this, 23:57 um, this is something I've been, like, uh, uh, just, just guessing as it's, as, as something that's probably true, and it turns out more people talk about it than I thought. 24:04 When I was looking up the geometry thing and they had a thing, they were interviewing, uh, bike designers, and one of the designers said, uh, how, uh, 24:12 a lot of the places that people ride nowadays are manmadeAnd, um, a-actually are built for suspension. And since they're built for suspension, 24:23 and since they're built for this-- I, I don't remember all of it, but it was kind of like my, my, my concept of it is that the, that bi- that trails... 24:30 Since full suspension bikes, y-when you slam on the brakes, they aren't as good as slamming on the brakes usually. You, you kind of dive forward a lot- Mm-hmm...um, especially on a cross-country style bike. Um, and 24:42 sometimes they're not as good at technical stuff where you have to like really feel the bike under you and, and not have it tilt forward and back and everything. 24:49 So I kind of think like a rigid bike handles better on a lot of technical stuff, um, in natural trails, off-camber turns. And then, you know, full suspension comes out, which I was 100% believer in. 24:59 I, where I worked at GT when, when the first prototype came, came in and we started making that stuff and I was riding them in, in-- rode, rode it while I had bike shops and different brands and things. 25:10 But the problem is you hit the brakes and then you dive forward, you know, and, um, it bobs and all this, so- 25:17 So once again, Jeff and I kind of got off into the weeds, and when we roll back in, he's going to start talking about chainstay length. Okay. Yeah, exactly. So it's-- and that's what it is. 25:26 It's, it's the whole this is, this is why I don't even have like a-- my webs- my website I'm trying to improve all the time, but I don't have like a, I don't have like a geometry page. 25:34 Because if I had a geometry page, everybody'd read the-- not everybody. 25:37 A lot of people would read the numbers, which they did when I first put the bike out and I predicted this and I [chuckles] and of course people did assume, you know, like, "Oh, chainstays like that, you'll never be able to lift a front end. 25:46 Oh, with a wheelbase like that, you won't be able to do tight turns." And it was almost a, it was-- You know, I was almost believing this because I kept hearing it from everybody and I keep hearing it everywhere. 25:53 [laughs] But when I was, when I would test it, it was just like, no. 25:56 And, and I, I, I went out and I made a video where I did a, like a nearly as blind of a taste test as I could where I went out with somebody else who I ride with who's my height, and we had two bikes with the same pedals. 26:07 One was a plus, one was a twenty-nine. They're both my bikes. And, um, we just kept switching and we used GoPro cameras and did video and, you know, it was hard to really tell during the ride. 26:19 You know, we-- you could definitely feel the different in the bikes, but it's hard to tell what was like, you know, quote, faster. Um, 26:28 and I w- and, and I was surprised when I, when I look at the video that I kind of think generally the plus was the faster bike overall and it felt more comfortable and it felt safer. 26:36 But at the same time, the twenty-nine was better for the rapid acceleration out of a turn. It was better for the tightest of tight turns. It was better for, um, like a vertical bunny hop. 26:46 Um, but as far as like, uh, just ripping through the rough stuff and, um, and staying connected to the ground and having traction and everything, it, it seemed to be like, yeah, uh, uh, especially across, there was one spot where we went across some rocks and it was just noticeably quicker. 27:01 Mm-hmm. Um, anyway. Well, and you, you mentioned something earlier that I'm, I'm kind of a firm believer in. I really like riding a rigid bike. 27:08 That's part of the reason why I've gone with, you know, plus tires or fat tires and things like that because, um, it-- a, a lot of times you can get, um, more information about what's going on between the tires and the ground, um, in technical terrain and, uh, that feedback can be really valuable and allow you to ride more efficiently, um, and ride smoother, um, and really kind of, you know, get the most out of the bike that you want to end up, um, doing. 27:33 Ab-absolutely. I mean, full suspension, I think it's, I think it's kind of almost hilarious that 27:38 for years, you know, people were working on all this suspension all over the place, including for Paris, you know, Paris-Roubaix bikes and stuff like this, where if you just ran some fatter tires and rims at a lower pressure, you'd have a more efficient suspension system with a bike that pedals and rides better, and it would be, and it would have lower rolling resistance. 27:54 And right now it's finally like coming, uh, like, you know, normal bicycle media is talking about like that bigger tires actually have lower rolling resistance and things. 28:04 For so long it was always a, you know, a thing about rotational weight's the most important thing to worry about and skinny tires are what you want to use if you're trying to go really fast. 28:13 So if you're going to go do a race, go put some one point eight tires on your bike and, you know, race around. But I don't believe that at all. I believe that these bigger tires have much less rolling resistance. 28:25 And the fat tire bikes, the twenty-six inch fat tire bikes that are so popular, I, um, I really 28:32 am thankful those things are out there because it's allowed a lot of people to go riding on them and then have the shock that, wow, it isn't like dr-dragging, you know, uh, through sand, you know, all high rolling resistance, super heavy drag. 28:49 In fact, it just rolls down the road just like anything. Mm-hmm. You know? And in, in fact, when you get on a gravel, it rides easier than what is being sold as a gravel bike today. 28:57 I mean, a, a fat tire bike will ride down a gravelly road with lower rolling resistance than a lot of gravel bikes will, especially if the gravel is actually a gravel road- Mm-hmm...like with some softness to it. 29:07 Um, and this is just, it's just, I think it's pretty factual now. It's e-everything I've ever read in the bicycle science books and, um, 29:15 when I talk to the engineers at tire companies and I ask them these questions, they say, "Yeah, bigger tires are totally lower rolling resistance. Yeah, totally. 29:21 It's just they're not as good for the sprint, and sprints are what's used to win a road race in a f- in a, in a d- in a track race, in a cross-country race." Um, so that's why, you know, skinny, skinny is, is there. 29:33 But for, um, but for going out and rolling all day, especially for bike packing or touring or something, where you're not trying to go out and rapidly accelerate and pull away from people, instead you're just rolling, then, um, 29:45 um, one tire company told me that, you know, the only reason they recommend, uh, um, a forty-- I think it was a forty-five millimeter tire as the ultimate touring tire was not because that is the ultimate touring tire, wha-what, but it was because if they did 29:59 recommend a, a bigger tire like a two point three, because I said, "Doesn't a two point three have lower rolling resistance, carry a better load, and get less flats and isn't it more comfortable? 30:07 So wouldn't it be better for touring?" And they said, "Yeah." And I said, "Well, why don't you recommend this for, for touring?" 30:11 Well, because I always, because I always do and my customers keep saying, "Well, this website says you shouldn't, you should do this one for the best touring." 30:18 And they said, "Well, yeah, well, if we recommended that tire that you know is best and we know is best, the problem is it wouldn't fit in touring bikes because we all know touring bikes are built with road drive trains, and road drive trains and touring bikes-"Together only have tire clearance for up to, you know, whatever, forty-five millimeter tire. 30:35 So therefore, the best tire ever for touring shall be a forty-five millimeter tire, even though it's not the best one. Mm-hmm. So it, it, it doesn't make any sense. 30:42 I mean p- there's all these people, um, I was out on the Oregon coast, and I saw a lot of people riding and, you know, it was, I think ninety-nine percent people on really skinny tired bikes with drop bars riding on the hoods. 30:55 And, and none of them are sprinting, none of them are doing... 30:57 So to me I've, I'm just happy that bigger tires are getting more popular because I just, I just can't spread fast enough and in some ways, a, a lot of bikes just they're st- staying so skinny even for the kind of riding they're doing, like gravel bikes- Well, and like-... 31:09 which could, uh, benefit from a, a bigger tire. 31:12 Well, you've actually even been a proponent of, I don't, I don't know what you'd necessarily want to call them, but like the, the biggest end of the, the plus size spectrum. 31:19 I mean, I've seen you speccing a lot of, uh, three-and-a-quarter inch tires, you know, a twenty-nine by three-and-a-quarter inch. 31:25 Yeah, that's about the biggest you can fit within the drivetrain, and that's the biggest they're making. And so since it really can't go any bigger, that's probably, um, I like it because it's, uh, 31:37 more cushion, more traction and, uh, a taller wheel, and it fits fine in the frame. So, uh, and the forks, uh, and, and I have rims that are fifty-six millimeters wide on the outside, um, 31:50 forty-nine, I think it's forty-nine on the inside. And, uh, so these work well together, and it just gives me more cushion. 31:56 There was a set of stairs I've been trying to ride, I was trying to ride up for years, um, out of a bike path where I would just kind of wheelie into the stairs and try to pedal up it, and usually I'll never make it very far because I would just bounce and kind of lose traction and couldn't really m- maintain pedaling. 32:10 And that was, um, 32:12 the very first time I ever made it up the stairs was, uh, when I was on a plus bike with three point two five tires, and I just hit it and it, it changed something to where I was just able to pedal right up it just like it was nothing. 32:25 I could do that, did it over and over again. It was just easy. 32:27 [laughs] Um, and it was because the tire was just absorbing enough of the edge of the curb, and this is just kind of like a really clean example of like perfectly broken rocks or something- Mm-hmm... 32:37 like let's try to ride up something gnarly, but it's perfect. Um, and when I'm out on the, the gravel, this has, you know, very low rolling resistance. 32:46 The one thing about a fat tire is you probably know that the, you know, there's not that much rubber on the ground really. 32:51 It's just when you slam into something or run into something soft that you end up with a lot of rubber on the ground. 32:56 When you're riding along on hard pack, when you go look at your tire print or your, uh, water print on dry cement or something, you can see if you're just coasting and not bouncing around, very small contact patch. 33:06 They're not that big. It's when you sink into something, then you get the benefit of the big tire, or you hit a rock, then you get the benefit of the soft tire. 33:13 So that, the concept of having like this giant, uh, piece of rubber dragging on the ground is not what it is. It's more like, um, so having, having a... That's why I like the big tire. 33:23 You know, the only drawback is rotational acceleration. You know, it's heav- it's heavier, so it won't accelerate as well. But I'm, I try to follow 33:31 kind of similar rules that you would a- a- as a driver trying to conserve gas. You, you know, uh, you know, don't, don't accelerate- [laughs]... you know, really hard. But if you want to, go for it. 33:44 You're just going to burn, burn your energy faster. Um, so, you know, when I go out and ride, it's like carving around and riding and, you know, still. 33:53 But the, uh, more traction, more cushion, more comfort, lower rolling resistance, more ability to kind of let off the brakes and just let loose into stuff. 34:03 Like if there's a bunch of rocks and I can't quite make out the best line, you know, you got a big enough tire, you just kind of let it off and just go right through it and, and it works out. 34:11 Um, especially with, uh, you know, some of the rims nowadays that just are so tough. Mm-hmm. 34:18 Well, and I've seen a lot of your bikes, um, especially back, uh, sort of in the earlier days of, you know, uh, fat bikes and twenty-niners before really the plus thing came out. 34:27 I saw a lot of them running a, a twenty-niner rear wheel, but then, uh, at least a four-inch, uh, fat bike tire up on the front. Yeah, that's, um, definitely. I was also often running a fifty-millimeter rim in the rear 34:43 around two thousand and nine or so, um, and, and the fat fr- so a fat front and then fifty-millimeter rim in the rear 34:51 with a two point five tire and the, and the fat size in the front would either be a fifty to a sixty-millimeter rim at the time with a three point eight and later the four point eight, which I liked better, uh, because it was taller, more like a- Mm-hmm... 35:02 twenty-nine inch wheel. Um, because for fat, e- because everyone was asking me, why am I not making a fat bike? Uh, and it was because when I, when I made a double tire, uh, well, you know, fat bike with two fat tires 35:15 after have already been riding a fat front bike or, or just a front tire fat bike, um, and since I wasn't really focusing on soft snow or really soft sand, just like dirt, gravel, whatever I do- Mm-hmm... 35:27 which does include snow, um, I found that when I added the fat rear wheel to the mix, that the rear tire, uh, didn't get me as excited as the fat front wheel, because the front wheel gave me- [laughs]... 35:40 steering traction, um, bump absorption for my hands and neck and arms. 35:46 Um, it is the wheel that usually contributes the most to a crash, so the front wheel's nice to have a lot of traction, extra traction and cushion with. 35:54 My arms are very weak, and they're connected to the front arm, uh, to the front end. Not that they're weak, but compared to my legs they are. My legs can- Right. Yeah... 36:01 are kind of standing on the rear end, so I can take the rough ride in the rear. 36:05 So if I'm steering and braking and controlling and holding on with my hands and my head's at the top of that, with the front end I run a big fat front tire. But then in the back end I, I, um, 36:16 can use, you know, a normal crank width, normal, uh, twenty-nine inch wheel. 36:21 But on a fifty-millimeter rim with a two point four tire can be ran at a pretty low pressure, and it's pretty s- like square kind of shape or U shape of the tire, and, um, then you can run those really low pressures if you can just keep the rim together. 36:34 And, and that was my problem back when I was doing that, as I was using a single wall aluminum rimThat I had some rims that I had gotten and they, um, I couldn't get the tire on very well. The tire would peel off a lot. 36:46 But now, now that we have bead lock on most of the rims, a good bead lock on most of the rims, you can go ahead and run the low pressure. So I like this combination, um, 36:56 because again, when I went, when I added the fat wheel to the rear, all I did was gain a bunch of weight in the back end and a wide crank set and good flotation for sure on sand and snow, but I just wasn't on that that much. 37:05 I was mainly appreciating it for the, what it did for me in the front end. And I, and I would, I would tell people when they asked me why I didn't do it, it's because 37:13 I know you love your fat bike, but I think it's like 89% or 90% of the fun and enjoyment that you're experiencing out of it is because if we have to like say which one is it, the front wheel or the back wheel, it's mostly the front wheel that's giving you the, the fun because the back end, it, you know, gives you a softer ride. 37:28 Um, but it, but as soon as you have a 50 millimeter rim on a 2.5 tire, it's pretty, it's still pretty cushy. Mm-hmm. So anyway, it's just, it's just kind of a bike. 37:36 You know, bikes can be made so many different ways and still work well, and if you're building a rigid bike, uh, you know, people forever have been running kind of fatter tires in the front. 37:44 When I raced BMX, I ran a fatter tire in the front than I did in the rear. 37:48 Uh, but never for the reason of having faster acceleration for a skinnier rear wheel, which I've read so many times or heard people say because they say, "Oh, I got a skinnier rear wheel so I can accelerate faster," but then I have to tell them that their front wheel is connected to the rear wheel via a conveyor belt known as the ground. 38:02 [laughs] Um, that like, it, it, it's, it's, so it's, everything's accelerating of course. Um, but yeah, the fat front wheel, 29 inch in the back, it changes the bike completely, makes it a lot of fun. 38:14 It's great for night riding or sloppy riding or just going fast. Just adds some weight. Um, you know, but, uh, before I was riding a plus bike, when I rode my 29, I almost always had the fat front. 38:26 I usually didn't ride it with the 29, 29-inch wheel, uh, except for sometimes when I wanted the bike. I tried to give into peer pressure, but sometimes when I had the fat front wheel, people just couldn't get over it. 38:38 They just couldn't- [laughs] They just couldn't handle it. So, um, so we, um, so I would put the 29-inch wheel on there and just go riding with that, and it worked great too. 38:48 It's just like a, you just have to watch your line a little better because you get caught in a little rut, you hit a golf ball sized rock, it kicks you around a little bit more, where the, where the fat tire, as you know, will swallow those things- Mm-hmm... 38:58 or not drop into those ruts. And, um, so that's, so I had a lot of people that switched over. 39:03 They would buy the bike with a 29-inch wheel, switch to the fat wheel, and just al- they'd always tell me the same kind of thing, that they love it, they don't use the 29-inch wheel anymore, and they should have listened to me when they bought the bike because I'd always tell them stuff like, "Just get the fat wheel first." 39:15 And they're like, "No, no, no, that's too much for me." [laughs] And, and I would say stuff like, "Oh, it's..." And they would say, "That's too much for me because I'm, um, 39:23 I'm a mellow rider and I don't do technical stuff and I don't have good skills." And I would say, "Well, that's like saying you're not a good hiker, so you're going to go out wearing high heels." 39:32 [laughs] Like, I mean, you want to have the most traction, the most, you know, like you want to have the best control you can, not less, um, generally, you know. But there's a balance of course. Um, 39:44 so I'm glad there's a lot more tire sizes because, you know, like with cars, there's lots of tire sizes, and back before tires were standardized when they went pneumatic and they w- you know, they went to standard sizes, everybody's using different sized tires when they, uh, were making them with hoses and things. 39:58 So, you know, they could use the best wheel size for the bike size, so now that we have more and more wheel sizes that we can get people to build bikes for, you know, either short wheel based design, long wheel based design, or a, uh, you know, suspension or non-suspension or whatever. 40:12 It's kind of nice. So, I mean, one of the, one of the big motifs it seems like is the versatility of the bike. 40:18 You know, making it good for a wide variety of, you know, conditions, so you don't have to have, you know, uh, one bike for trail riding, one bike for gravel riding, one bike for, you know, who knows what else. 40:30 Uh, so, um, you've got a pretty unique handlebar design, the, the, the Jones handlebars, which have got like a, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but somewhere around a 45 degree angle for the, the sweep back. Yeah. 40:44 Yeah. Um, so talk a little bit more about how that kind of plays in with the versatility of both, you know, sort of the bike position and what you can end up doing with the bike. Yeah. 40:54 Well, um, like you're saying, be- standing upright more, standing on your feet more with your hands further back, um, with the much shorter reach that my frames have, and also the fit is different. 41:06 When I talk, like when I was looking at other bikes on, on the internet here trying to see what this long, low thing was about, I would look at a bike and I would, I would, uh, look up my height on their fit chart, and it would put me on their size large. 41:19 And I would look at the geometry and I'm thinking, that's not my size. And then I would go look at the geometry and I would, I would usually end up fitting on the small. If I'm going by reach, I rode their small. Um, so, 41:32 um, bringing, you know, bringing the bars back a lot has a lot to do with it so you can stand more on your feet. And since we're standing on our feet, now what the handlebars are for... 41:42 See, before like with a drop bar, what's the bar for? The bar, what you're trying to, on a, in a road race, this is, this is my, this is my take on it. Where is it important? At the sprint finish. 41:53 That's where the money's happening. That's where the race is won. 41:56 So at the race, at the end of the race, we want to get our bodies in a flat back position, as aero as possible, so you need to prop up your body on your arms while you're in this flat back position, holding onto bars so you can pull on really hard and sprint away and try to beat everyone else. 42:11 So, um, that's what it's for. That's why you're doing that. Um, it's, I think, I, I would consider it to be a, 42:21 I would think it would be fair to call it, and I call it, a, a contorted, unnatural, uncomfortable position that's bad for handling for the benefit of a sprint finish, aerodynamic, uh, speed type thing. 42:30 You know- Mm-hmm... some kind of sentiment like that. And, um, so where I'm saying though, no, I'm not, I'm not designing the bike for a sprint finish. 42:37 We're designing for riding around and controlling the bike, and all, all BMX riders, downhill riders, uh, a lot of all-mountain bikes, BMW motorcycle, like Paris to Car sty- style bikes-Put the rider in a pretty much just about standing there position, you know, and horses and jet skis and snowmobiles, um, in a standing position, and that's what I'm trying to do and since you're in a standing position, now I might as well give you the ability to, or ag- I, I wanted to have the ability to lean back more on the downhill, so slide to the rear of the bar with one finger on the brake for going down a hill, and this way it's kind of like shortening my stem effectively. 43:14 So when you're at the back of the bar with one finger on the brake, you're hanging off the back of the bike 43:18 and, um, you know, just, just like you would on a downhill bike, you'd use a shorter stem or something with a wider hand position. 43:24 And then when you're, uh, climbing or kind of jamming along and you want to lean over, get up on top of the cranks a little bit more, sliding forward on the seat, you might slide your hands forward now and get up to maybe all the way up to the, where the welded area or where the T area is and put your thumb over the crossbar, and this would... 43:41 Or, or put your, your fingers out over the cro- the, the front extensions of the bar with the heel of your hand on the crossbar, and this would s-stretch you out, lean you over a little more, narrow up your arms, and this would be good for like, you know, 43:55 s-s-spinning and going fast. So if you- It puts you in a more aero kind of position... need the upright and far back. Hmm? Hmm? Yeah, you can aero position, upright position. 44:03 If you go all the way to the rear of the seven ten bar, you can't reach the brakes anymore, but you have this wonderfully comfortable position that's almost as upright as riding with no hands. Mm-hmm. 44:11 And, you know, on a, on a road bike, when you're riding at the very top or the highest position with your, kind of your hands around the bend and you're not even reaching the hoods, you have no brakes, and that's the, like as upright as you can get. 44:22 On this bar, when you're as far back as you can get, it's way comfortable and, and it's just-- And you have perfect steering. 44:28 Um, and then you can just slide forward an inch or a half inch and you're right on the brakes again and then scoot up in front of that, get some three-finger braking and you're in a leaned over more aero position. 44:37 And if you really want to, you know, tuck and get aero, I, you might not want to use it for a, for a pack sprint finish or something, but you could use it for tucking into the wind for a long time. 44:46 You can just hold onto the front of the crossbar or the f-the front bar, front of the loop, lean onto the rear bar, and this way you're supported by both tubes. 44:55 And even with just a little bit of handlebar tape, this is a really comfortable thing, and if you add more padding or if you add an extension to the front, um, you don't even ne- you don't need to add an aero bar. 45:06 It's, uh, like pads and all this stuff really. You just need something to hold onto so you can steer with it. Um, s-so you can go from aero to super upright to downhill to cross-country to resting and, you know, 45:22 uh, uh, people talk about being comfortable on a bike and they'll say how a bicycle's so comfortable or something. Really, it's not so comfortable. 45:29 Um, even a, even on a super comfortable chair, you know, if you sit in a super comfortable chair and, and don't move for a long time, uh, you'll just end up being very uncomfortable, uh, and, and, uh, cramping and everything, even in a comfortable chair. 45:42 And then you get on a bicycle, which is like almost getting on a fence and trying to ride it. [laughs] Um, 45:48 and then, and then to be locked into one position to where your shoulder, neck, back, and all this is locked into the same angle, which is what a straight bar does for you. 45:56 With a straight bar or a bar with, you know, what-uh, whatever, a lot of sweep even, 'cause a lot of people do make bars with, uh, there are a lot of bars out there with a lot of sweep, but they still kind of have a single hand position. 46:06 Mm-hmm. So if you're climbing, you're holding on there. If you're descending, you're holding on there. So this is where you're holding on for all place, for, for doing whatever you're doing instead of, uh, moving around. 46:16 It's, it's-- I kind of think of the, the loop bar or my H bars, that's the main name of these things, 'cause I have different versions of them. Mm-hmm. The H bar is as, um, a multiple position handlebar 46:28 as a drop bar is a multiple position handlebar, but the drop bar has the multiple positions for, um, from how I understand it and how I see it in bicycle history and the evolution of bike racing and the handlebar 46:41 that came from it, um, is that the drop bar is so that you can be in that sprint position for the sprint, whether it's in track, uh, for track or a crit or a longer distance thing like the Tour. 46:53 Um, that, that's the main thing. I have a nineteen thirty-eight Schwinn here, uh, with wooden rims and no brakes. It's fixed gear because it just didn't have brakes, not because it was a fixed gear bike. 47:03 It was a fixed gear bike, but they didn't have gears at, at, at that point on a lot of the bikes, um, at all. 47:09 So it only had handlebar tape and grip stuff down at the bottom, and that's how, that's what I see, uh, in a lot of, you know, photos and, uh, paintings and information from history books and museums that I've gone to, uh, that the bars are basically bent down so that you could have a good finishing position going around a track or in a race, and then, um, 47:31 that was it. And then, and then, and then f- the freewheel came out and you added 47:36 brake levers, and now you have the hoods position because shortly afterwards somebody realized, "Let's wrap some rubber or some cloth or something here and we'll add a new hand position because, gosh, I'm tired of leaning over." 47:46 So they added the hoods position. 47:48 Now, the hoods position on drop bars turns out to be one of the most commonly used positions, even though it was something that came out way after drop bars were invented, 'cause it was just added on when the brakes came out because of the freewheel. 47:59 Um, the-- At least I think that's right. 48:02 Um, and then this bar, instead of being made for going into a drop position or an up and waiting to sprint position, 'cause now when you're on the hoods or at the top of a drop bar, I kind of consider that to be, at least for racing, you're waiting. 48:13 You're, you're in a, you're in a peloton or something and you're waiting for the sprint. 48:17 Um, but if you're using it for road riding, that's fine, uh, for just like cruising around, but then you end up just kind of riding in a kind of, I think, an awkward position waiting for a sprint that never comes. 48:26 So this bar, the, my, my loop H bar, has multiple hand positions for what I found that I was doing, which was riding around, going off-road. I needed a balance for the technical stuff and jumps and 48:38 like trials-y things, but then I wanted to lean back on downhill and I wanted to get aero somehow and that-- And it all kind of all worked out with this bar. 48:46 It all came together and it gives me a wide rear position, like I said, and a narrow forward position and all this stuff in between and-And my elbows, you know, come in a lot more and put my arms in a more natural, 48:59 uh, sweep. It's where your hands go if you just kind of hold your hands out in front. 49:03 And if you make a, a, if you turn the handlebars at 90 degrees, you know, either way, not that you're normally turning that tight, but if you do with a straight bar or, or a straighter bar, my outside hand, my wrist is l- at lock. 49:14 I can't rotate it that far. But with 45 sweep, I can make a, I can turn the bars 90 degrees left to right. My hands, my arms are still within their range of motion. To me, it just makes more sense. 49:25 And if you go back through the, you know, the history of bikes, um, before, um, a, a, a l- a lot of bikes had a, a lot of sweep and people would hold on all over the handlebar. And, uh, it makes a lot of sense and, um, 49:42 so why should we just... 49:44 You know, it's a lot more expensive to make, so it's harder to spec on bikes, and it's harder to make and make profits on because you got, you got two tubes, both of them are butted, welded, um, heat treated, all this, you know, mitered, uh, s- filed, you know, all this stuff instead of a single piece of pipe so, um, or tubing. 50:05 But, um, this, it's, it's all because I'm just-- I just decided why should I follow all these rules that I keep reading and hearing about that don't make sense? 50:14 Why shouldn't I just read up about what I can in bicycle science and, and whatever I can around that and figure out for myself, especially for how, how the bike rides because I can tell you the very first time I rode a mountain bike, 50:28 I think was in '86 or something, and I was riding BMX bikes and stuff like that at the time, and I went on a ride with a bunch of riders. They were club road riders. They were the adults. And, um, 50:43 we went out on mountain bikes, and they were like eightie- 1986, 1985 mountain bikes. And, uh, th- uh, by that time, they were already kind of like they weren't cruisers. 50:53 They were, um, more like this leaned over cross-country like road fit. And, uh, they handled horribly. 51:00 And but I went with it for so long, and I tried to get used to it and everything, and riser bars came out, and that made things a little better and all this. 51:06 But then I just decided I'm just gonna make the bikes the way I want to instead of keep following this suspension corrected stuff and whatever else, and I'm, uh, 51:15 really happy that bigger tires are there because I've been, I've been kind of like begging and dreaming for that for a long, long time because when I first started, the biggest 51:23 rim I could find was I think 27 millimeters wide, and the biggest tire was like, you know, you know, if you get 2.5 or something, but then when the 29s came out, it was only a 2.1 at first- Mm-hmm... 51:34 I think for a while until eventually, you know, we got a, the 2.5, and that was really nice. But now, you know, where we are with, uh, three-inch on a, on a, on a 56 or a 49 inner rim, it's, uh, really nice. 51:48 It's, uh, given me what I thought it would too when I was thinking about it. 51:52 So speaking of comfort and kind of doing things in an unconventional manner, the, you know, the Jones Plus bike is a kind of a traditional diamond round tube, you know, uh, style frame. Yeah. 52:04 But you also with your truss forks and then also the, the space frame, um, you've got some pretty unique stuff going on there, um, and then definitely with the space frame, it, you know, I remember looking at some of your videos, um, on your website, um, that seems to add in a lot of, uh, vertical compliance to the bike too. 52:24 So, you know, what, what's the deal with the unconventional, uh, frame construction? 52:31 Um, that was something that I was playing around with almost bef- that, that was something I was doing before I even was messing with the geometry. 52:39 When I was first working on my-- when I had-- I had sold my bike shop and, uh, uh, previously I, I, I worked at GT and I learned to build frames there, and when I was a kid, I had built frames, so I decided I'm gonna build frames again, so I sold my bike shop and, uh, moved up to Oregon and, and, um, 52:56 started making frames and was kind of playing with some ideas and I had, uh, you know, drawn up some things and, and it seemed like a, 53:03 uh, the space frame design and the first one had just all straight tubes, uh, would be a way to kind of increase standover height and increase some, uh, you know, lateral stiffness and, uh, 53:15 and give me a stronger connection to the head tube and everything. 53:18 So I did that, and the first one didn't have the, uh, the curve on the s- the, the first few, a couple or three or so, didn't have the curve on the seat stays or the top tube or the ovalizati- oval- ovalizing, ovalization or whatever, whatever you want to call it, on the seat stays and chain stays. 53:34 Um, and then, then I kind of came up with that all at once for this bike I was building for, um, for myself, but it was also, I was kind of like in a rush. 53:43 I was thinking, "I'm going to take this to Interbike," and I knew I could get it done in time and I, somebody was going to let me be in this corner of their booth. 53:48 So I decided to finish this thing in time, and it was an idea to build a bike rigid specific with, um, the space frame design, but with a lot more vertical compliance and standover height built into it, and then, um, a truss fork, 54:03 uh, that was different than, uh, previous truss forks. 54:06 So anyway, I did that, and that's, that's when I started using more offset, slacker seat angle, and shorter reach because I've been riding around in my whole, my whole career on a mountain bike. 54:13 I've been getting numb hands, flipping over the handlebars, you know, having a hard time with, you know, really lofting and controlling the bike like I could when I rode a BMX bike or, you know. And, um, 54:28 so, so I just decided to build my bike the way I wanted to based on, uh, based on my-- based on, uh, direct experience of the bike. You know, what am I feeling from the bike? What, what is it? 54:39 I try, I try to like, you know, I, I try to listen to the bike. You know, like what does it want to be? 54:44 [laughs] 'Cause it's kind of like, it's kind of like if, if nature, if, if, if a tree is like evolving, it's, it's almost like it's trying to do something or it's, it's being formed in a certain way. 54:53 What is the bicycle trying to do, and what, what would it be doing if, if we weren't directing it based on-Trying to predict what the customer is looking for next year or two years from now based on what we're doing today, instead of saying, 55:08 let's try to make the best bike and also I wasn't trying to like bust categories or something or make a bike that was universal for all things. I was originally, I was trying to make the ultimate like, uh, 55:21 you know, off road bicycle or mountain bike, I guess you could call it. Um, but mountain bikes today generally have look a lot different. 55:29 Um, but I was trying to make the best bike for going out in the woods, riding around on this technical stuff that I had out here, some really technical trails, um, stuff hardly anybody rides and it's 55:40 pretty tight and stuff, but then there's a lot of fire roads and stuff. So the geometry that I developed for doing the really technical stuff, I mean, it was all about, can I hop this log? Can I get around this turn? 55:50 Can I wheelie up onto this? Um, I've, I've, I've done trials competitions on that bike, um, with the twenty-nine inch and it was all about that. But then after I was done with it, 56:00 there I was with the bike that if you built it up and put a set of big apples on it, it was more comfortable, more upright, better handling in, in this, what everybody tells me who rides it than their touring bikes. Hmm. 56:15 Touring bikes have skinnier tires. They're way leaned over. It's kind of like you took a racing bike and said, okay, it's a road racing sprinting bike. 56:22 We'll give you slightly fatter tires, slightly higher handlebars and slightly, you know, lower gearing or something. 56:28 And I had one woman who came to me, her hands were permanently numb, carpal tunnel, you know, uh, really bad. And, um, she just loved her bike. I mean, her Jones bike. 56:36 And she said her whole time she's been riding on drops because she said that's what she thought she was supposed to do, uh, for touring. 56:43 And, and, and now she actually goes down dirt roads that she never would go down before because she was always so afraid because she was always leaned over, stretched out because she was shorter too. Mm-hmm. 56:53 She was, she was like five six, um, or five five, I think. And, and, um, smaller bikes, a lot of the time to have a shorter top tube, they give you a steeper seat angle, which means your reach doesn't decrease much. 57:08 So what she ended up with is she was, you know, pelvis forward, stretched out, leaned over weight on hands in drop bars, trying to ride on, riding around for fun with no sprints in sight. 57:18 Um, so you take that bike that I had made for, you know, single track and, and fire roads, and you just put a rack on it, frame pack these handlebars. 57:29 And I just think it just makes more sense in a touring bike outright because the skinnier tire doesn't carry the load as well. It has higher rolling resistance. It gets more flats. You're more likely to crash. 57:37 It's, you know, every, every, there's no benefits to it except for that it's more aerodynamic, but who cares? You got bags hanging off the sides of the bike. 57:44 [laughs] And then, um, and the speeds aren't that high and at lower speeds, wind resistance is much less than when you're do like time trialing or something where it matters. Um, 57:54 so, uh, so my bike with some big apples and thirty-five or forty-five millimeter rims turned out to be a really nice touring bike. 58:02 So what I would do is I would just send it out and I didn't build it to be this, but then I guess you could say I did because I took it and then I put some fenders on it and some slicks and I send it off to magazines that 58:13 test touring bikes and things. Um, but then I take the same bike and I send it off to somebody who does, you know, North shore style riding just because I know that we don't, I mean, this is like, I don't know. 58:29 I just believe this as ever since I was a kid, I mean, one bike that you ride all the time has always been the best thing. You have one bike that fits well for what you do. You ride it. 58:37 You, uh, not only can, can one bike do everything unless you're doing sprint racing or like specialty stuff. But if you're basically saying, I want to ride around 58:47 over various terrains, staying comfortable with, you know, staying safe and doing it as fast as an efficient, I am lazy. I'm very lazy as far as going on a ride. I don't want to have to work hard. I really, 59:00 I'm always trying to think of how can I make this easier? Um, so if, if people invite me on a ride and they're faster than me and I haven't ridden in weeks, I'm going to take my 59:09 twenty-nine by three point two five tire bike. I'm not going to take out some bike with skinny rims and tires to try to save myself energy and make it easier. 59:17 I used to do that years ago and I, and, and I would just ignore the, I would ignore the facts. 59:23 I would be out there riding with these skinnier tires, getting beat to crap, struggling to hold onto the bike, fighting for traction, burning calories faster than I was saving them. Um, 59:33 uh, so this is why I build the bikes again, like that is for the, is for the ride. And to me, a bicycle, I mean, I, I don't want to be a purist or anything, but a bicycle with suspension is a bicycle with suspension. 59:45 A bicycle is a bike, a plain bicycle doesn't have suspension. Not that that means you shouldn't have suspension. Um, but a motorcycle and a car are a big chunk of mass. They weigh a lot. 59:59 Um, and then you get in the car or sit on the motorcycle and you're, you're just adding, you know, a, a, a bit of mass to the top of it or inside of it. So you don't, you don't affect it that much. 1:00:10 Uh, so when, when, when a motorcycle slams on the brake, when you slam on the brakes on a motorcycle, uh, all this, all this solid mass that's connected to the frame is down low, the engine and all this stuff, gas tank, everything. 1:00:23 Um, and, and then you combine it with your weight and if we were looking at it from the side, you take a bicycle rider and a motorcycle rider and a car and look at it from the side, um, a motorcycle, you know, a motorcycle has much lower center of gravity, a car way lower, and then a bicycle has this tremendously high center of gravity. 1:00:39 And then, then you short throw a short wheelbase under it with some suspension. You, you know, it's like, you know, it's like short little rocking horse. It's dangerous. Kids flip over and land on their face. Um, 1:00:50 you want something that doesn't do that. Um, so if it doesn't rock and, um, 1:00:56 you know, if you, um, if you have the longer wheelbase and you're more in between the bike, I think in your, in your center of gravity is in the right place and not having suspensionTo me is a big part of that, especially because like you said, you can feel the ground. 1:01:08 You can also spring off of the ground. You can pedal by pushing firmly on the ground when you're pedaling, and if you go to bunny hop, you can push off of that. And I mean, you can... 1:01:17 I mean, on my bi- um, on the Plus bike, you could just run into a curb to go up it. You don't even have to do anything. It might be a good idea to stand up. 1:01:24 So if you're hitting things harder than that, that hurt your hands, then essentially you're either... You're, you're doing stunts now. Mm-hmm. You know, Evel Knievel style stuff. 1:01:32 [laughs] Um, or, or, or, or you just need to smooth out a little bit because it, it just depends on what you're doing. But if, if you're hucking the big stuff, I guess, you know, you need, you need suspension. Mm-hmm. 1:01:44 Yeah, because it's been interesting to see where your bikes have been reviewed, because I saw the review in I think it was Pinkbike, where they were riding it on the North Shore. 1:01:52 Um, and then, you know, you th- they span all the way over to Bicycle Quarterly, which, you know, does a lot more, you know, touring oriented type stuff, and it's, it's, you know, largely the same design, you know, going both places [laughs] 1:02:06 . Well, it's, it's because I really think, you know, with fat bikes... I mean, don't you think most fat bikes don't ha- are rigid, right? Most of them, most people have rigid fat bikes- A lot of times, yeah... 1:02:14 for the- Yep. Okay. And, uh, and, and there's, and like you said, you love, you love rigid. A lot of people like it. We all know why. 1:02:20 Life simple, good handling, simple, don't need shocks anyway most of the time, all this stuff. 1:02:27 But then they're all designed for suspension forks, and then you go to mountain bikes, which, um, generally have full suspension and quite often, you know, s- some places they'll tell you, you know, if you're going to go ride these trails, you got to have at least five or six or eight- [laughs]... 1:02:40 or whatever, just so many inches of travel. But we all know that's not true. Um, so if you des- if you, um... 1:02:49 So again, it's all about trying to make the bike for, for what we want instead of just making the bike that they're making, um, 1:02:58 to, uh, to give us the ride we're trying to get, which is want to ride around, ride around easily. 1:03:04 Um, and on the street, I mean, really, if, if s- to me, like if you have a g- a group going out on a club ride, and, and I have gone on them a few times, and they're a lot of fun. Depends on the club ride, of course. 1:03:16 [laughs] You know, but, uh, there's a lot of, you know, g- people are going out there, and they're just, they're doing the r- they're doing the sprint thing, you know, at, at the, at the road signs and at, at borders and whatever. 1:03:27 Um, and that's fine. That, that's, that's a, that's something. But if you, if you're not into that and you're saying, "No, I just want to like go out and cover the miles and go really far," um, then, uh, 1:03:38 the, I have a lot of my customers who do ride my bikes with like Schwalbe Super Motos on club rides and on big long tours and these charity rides and, uh, in group tours and, or just solo tours, and then they hang out with other people who are riding normal bikes. 1:03:53 And all they hear is things like, "Wow, those are big tires. You must have some strong legs to push those. Why do you have such big tires? Like, are you going off-road or something? 1:04:02 Or, like, doesn't that have a lot of drag? You should get skinnier tires because you'd have a lot less drag. It'd be a lot easier to pedal, you know, if you had skinnier tires." 1:04:09 But then the thing is, you'll be riding along next to them, and you can see their skin shaking and vibrating. 1:04:13 They're pedaling the whole time, and I'm just coasting because, uh, my, I'm, my energy isn't being, you know, soaked up by, uh, all the vibration from the, the road, which isn't so smooth usually. Um... 1:04:25 Yeah, and that's, that's the thing. I know, right. It's like there's such a perception of like a skinnier tire at a higher pressure feels faster because you're feeling all this vibration and, you know- Yeah... 1:04:33 the bike feels kind of sketchy and all these things. So I mean, it's just kind of perpetuated- Yeah... this myth that, you know, skinny tires and higher pressure is where it's at. 1:04:41 Whereas if you look at any of the modern studies, which is, is I'm so glad they're finally putting some numbers to this. Yeah. Um, you know, it's so much faster to end up having a fatter tire at lower pressure. Yeah. 1:04:52 And it's just so much more comfortable, so much safer. You know, um, it's, it's both- Ev- ev- everything about it. Yeah. Yeah. It's just wonderful. 1:05:01 I, I, I, I think it's, I think it's great, and I think now that information is there, people should respond and kind of like demand or buy the bikes that, you know, give them what they want. 1:05:11 Like for, I, I keep, uh, I keep s- seeing the gravel bike thing out there. Uh, I mean, not, not that riding on gravel. I, I'm talking about the bikes being sold as bikes that are saying, "These are gravel bikes." Mm-hmm. 1:05:23 "These are the best." Um, and they are good. 1:05:26 They're very good, and they're much better than using your old road racing bike, and they're, and they're a lot better than using probably like a hardtail designed around a suspension fork or a full suspension mountain bike or a touring bike or a cyclocross bike. 1:05:39 So those are all different things. 1:05:41 But if you just, if you just, um, you know, like I said, run some two point threes and some wider rims and lower pressure, um, and, and get in some positions that make sense for the long haul kind of riding that you're doing, I think, I think you'll be putting out less energy. 1:05:56 Um, I mean, it's like when I go back on my old 26 inch, my like old 26 inch wheel bikes- [laughs]... 1:06:02 with the skinnier rims and tires and stuff, and I go out and ride them just a little bit, and I'll go ride across some gravel and some dirt and stuff, and it's like, wow, that's... I remember this. 1:06:10 [laughs] You know, I remember fighting for traction. I remember having all this resist... And, and you don't even, I didn't even realize at the time that it w- had more resistance, even though I was buying skinnier rims. 1:06:19 [laughs] You know, I was like, "Let's buy skinnier rims," and then wondered why the tires were rolling off and that was, you know- Mm-hmm... 1:06:24 a whole nother thing, the trend of, you know, using skinnier rims, uh, uh, when we were already at 28 millimeters and then went back down to skinny rims for, uh, whatever, a decade or so. Yeah. 1:06:34 Thank you, Keith Bontrager. 1:06:36 [laughs] They had a Bontrager, they had a Bontrager road rim, and then, and then I, I would always be talking, I would talk to a lot of customers that would say, I would say, "You know, I recommend wide rims on my bikes. 1:06:45 Get some wide rims." They're like, "Oh, I got, um, the, you know, Stan's Flowes. Those are really, really wide." [laughs] But my Ar- my Araya RM20 1:06:55 that I had, I guess in around, like, '86, '88 or something, which was a really, it seemed like a, a rim that was on a lot of the bikes coming through the bike shop- Yep... uh, was exactly over 28 millimeters wide. 1:07:04 I had, I have, still have one laying around, and I went and measured it. I'm like, "Huh, look at that. 1:07:07 Same width as this rim that's considered to be really, really wide."But back then, the tire that was on it was a two point one. And, um, this is something I like to point out and 1:07:16 because I'm always looking for somebody to like, tell me why this-- just tell me more about this. 1:07:22 All the pneumatic tires out there on al-almost anything I can think of, um, airplanes, cars, jeeps, trucks, uh, all that stuff, have rims 1:07:32 that are just about the same width as the tire, or the tire that is basically a little bit wider- Mm-hmm... than the rim. And it, it, it's kind of obvious, you know, in a way. 1:07:42 It-- this way the, the rim isn't gonna fall off the side of the tire. 1:07:45 And when I say that, I mean, you know, like if you go around a corner and you had a skinnier rim on a car, you'd end up with the tires peeling off to the side around the-- going around the corner. 1:07:54 And this is what's happening with the-- that's what happens with skinny rims on fat tires. So I really- Right... we, we, we, we're building all the bikes here with, um, 1:08:03 this kind of proportion or these kind of proportions where a, a two point four-- a twenty-nine by two point four tire but on a forty-nine millimeter rim so that, 1:08:11 you know, if you stand a wheel up and put a square right up against the side of the tire, the tire is, you know, maybe the rim is, you know, four, four or five millimeters narrower than the side of the tire. 1:08:20 And this, this puts more rubber on the ground. It lets you run a softer pressure while receiving more support from the tire because the wide... Anyway, it, it, it is kind of obvious stuff now, but, um, 1:08:35 this I think is the way to do it. Yeah. Is, is to do it like that, is to have the wider, is to have the wider rim, the wider tire that matches up with the rim. I think, uh, you know, the fifty millimeters are good width. 1:08:45 It's not ideal. I don't, I don't like going narrower. I got a lot of people that kind of always want to go back to the, the middle ground, you know, like, um, and, and that's okay. 1:08:54 But whenever I go down to like a forty millimeter rim or something, or not when I go down to it, but when I ha- I still have some bikes around that have some skinnier rims, and I, 1:09:02 like demo bikes that haven't got rid of yet, and they, um, they have skinnier rims. And when I go out and ride them, I can feel it. 1:09:08 Uh, skinnier rims make my tire floppy, or I, they make them overinflated because I have to pump them up to make them stiff enough. Mm-hmm. But if I take them down low, then they're all flimsy. 1:09:19 So either it's rough riding or it's bad handling. But, but with the wider rim, I usually get the, the-- it's easier to get the balance of lots of traction, lots of cushion, and a, a wide rim to kind of 1:09:32 do a good job of sitting on the, on a wide tire. Yep. You're definitely preaching to the choir on that one. 1:09:38 It's been so nice to see what, you know, the fat bike world has opened up for bikes in general because it seems like, you know, it's gotten a lot more accepted to have really wide rims. 1:09:48 Rims, like you were saying, that almost match the width of the, the tire. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 1:09:53 I mean, that's, uh, uh, the funny thing is some of the tire and rim manufacturers, though, because they haven't tested them with these various combinations, have told me they can't actually recommend it, but it's mainly not because it's a bad idea, but it's because things haven't been, like, verified or something. 1:10:06 [laughs] Um, you know, but it, we, but we've been, you know, you know, Schwalbe One tire, that super light, really huge road tire, call it a seven hundred by fifty-eight or something, on a, on a, on my 1:10:20 fif- on my fifty-six millimeter wide carbon rim. It's, it's just really nice. It's so, it just is so low pressure. It's absorbing everything. It's so supple, and it's just, um... 1:10:33 And you can go into a driveway with a big ledge at an angle and not crash. Mm-hmm. You know? Um, so I, I, that's how we're, that's how we're doing them. 1:10:43 So the handlebars, the geometry, the wheels, the wheelbase, all the little numbers in between like drop and front center and seat angle and top tube and reach and all this stuff fit in there. 1:10:54 But the, but the fit is more upright. Your handlebars are closer to your body. You're standing up more on your feet. Your butt's further back. 1:11:02 Um, and with the long wheelbase, but with this geometry, it's still easy to lift the front end. It jumps really well. It goes very good at high speeds over bumps. It's a ridiculous high speed, rough, you know, bike. 1:11:15 Uh, I mean, also for very hard stops, really pound and, you know, slam on the brakes, come to a screeching halt because the front axle's so far out in front of you. I mean- 1:11:24 Sorry to cut things off, but that seemed like a good spot to stop. Jeff and I kept talking, but for brevity's sake, I felt like it was probably a good place to cut the podcast off. 1:11:32 So thank you for listening, and a huge thanks to Jeff Jones for, um, spending so much time talking to me about what, uh, some of the unique things are that he's doing to make, uh, a much more versatile and better riding bike. 1:11:45 So if you're interested, um, we'll have links to, uh, Jeff Jones Bikes, and we look forward to, um, presenting you with more interesting people like Jeff in the future. Thanks for listening.
