New Outside Column, New Radio Show, Jones LWB Rundown...Whew!

As I mentioned yesterday, WBAI is back on the air, and if you want to hear yesterday's show you can do so by clicking this.

By the way, people regularly ask me if the show is available in podcast form.  The answer is "no."  All of that stuff is up to the radio station, and inasmuch as they can barely stay on the air I wouldn't hold out much hope for them to make this into a podcast anytime soon.  However, you can listen live via the website, or else stream it later--or just ignore the show altogether and read my latest Outside column instead:

The "repair" described herein is my attempted installation of the so-called "Hub Doctor" bushing-to-bearing conversion kit for the Mavic Scaryum freehub.  Since penning this column, I managed to undo the damage I did, and then simply installed a brand-new Mavic freehub instead.  And after all that, the wheel still creaks.

Fortunately I've had slightly better luck riding bikes than repairing them, and this past weekend I took my artisanal singlespeed out to the Isle of Long:

I used to ride here pretty regularly when I lived in Brooklyn, but I had not been back since moving to the mainland back in Two Thousand and Twelve, and I'm pleased to report Stillwell remains mostly unchanged and immune to the passage of time, much like Long Island itself.  The trails here are twisty, gently undulating, and distinctly non-technical, which makes them the ideal terrain for an old-fashioned rigid singlespeed bicycle with "narrow" tires.

There is of course a time and a place for ratcheting your way through a tricky section of trail, but Stillwell is not that time or that place--it's all about going as fast as you can without washing out in those sandy turns.  (Not that I can go very vast, but still.)  It's hard to imagine a better bike than the one above for these conditions, and I even encountered its motor vehicle equivalent in the parking lot:

What makes this Maserati the equivalent of my Engin?  Well, they're both black, they're both sleek, and they're both timelessly impractical.

But yes, since moving to the northern precincts my knobby-tired rides consist of less sandy singlespeed scurrying and more rocky multi-geared meandering.  It was Ol' Piney that first increased my range and got me going longer as opposed to doing the old "hit one MTB spot and ride around in circles" thing, but once I fell in with Jones is where it all really came together:

Since being indoctrinated I've transitioned from the SWB to the LWB pictured above.  This is of course the complete out-of-the-box version, which I'm riding with all the stock components (with the exception of the saddle which I swapped for an all-weather Cambium), and as I rode it last Friday I figured I might as well give you a closer look what's on it and and how it's all holding up so far.

The rear derailleur is a SRAM NX Eagle and it moves the chain up and down a 12-speed NX Eagle 11-50 cassette:

I guess the higher-end SRAM groups now use a smaller freehub or driver or whatever you want to call it that allows you to use a cassette with a 10-tooth high gear, giving you more range with your de rigeur/au courant/whatever-other-French-expression-you-want-to-use single-ring drivetrain.  However, I'm in no particular hurry, everything works great, and the gearing range leaves me wanting for nothing on either end.  It's paired with a 30-tooth front chainring, by the way, and the crank is a Truvativ Stylo:

Jones specs short cranks on his bikes--the small comes with 165mm, and the medium and large both come with 170mm.  (Traditionally if you're my size you'd use a 175mm on a mountain bike.)  I'm one of those people who can feel the difference in crank length, and when I first got the SWB (which also comes with 170s in my size) I was worried.  But then I discovered something: just because I can feel the difference, that doesn't mean the difference is bad.  On the contrary, I got used to it quickly and now think absolutely nothing of it.  In fact I had a similar experience with my New-To-Me Titanium Forever Bike, which came with 175s instead of the 172.5s I'd usually use on the road.  In short, it turns out a 5mm difference in crank arm length is pretty much meaningless, go figure.

As for the design of the crank, I am of course an outspoken proponent of the Shimano Hollowtech II system, which when paired with a standard threaded bottom bracket shell is inarguably the greatest interface of all time.  The Jones does use a threaded bottom bracket shell, but the Stylo crank works differently than the Shimano system, and it has this collar-type thing on the non-drive side to set the preload:

I have touched absolutely nothing since taking the bike out of the box, and it all runs smoothly and silently, so I ain't complaining.

The shifter is also SRAM NX Eagle:

I slightly prefer Shimano shifters since the upshift lever works in both directions, but mostly all I think when I ride this is, "Holy crap, this is supposedly 'entry level' stuff and it works perfectly, it's amazing how far mountain bike shifting has come."  (I still love my singlespeed, but the crappy shifting that made singlespeeding a thing clearly doesn't exist anymore.)

As for the brakes, they are Tektro mechanicals:

As a lousy bike mechanic with retrogrouchical tendencies it won't surprise you at all that I'm a fan of mechanical disc brakes.  Yes, hydrolic dick breaks feel better and all that stuff, but the fact is that good mechanical disc brakes also work excellently, and as a bonus they're downright idiot-proof.  The brakes that come on the Jones have both outboard and inboard pad adjustment, the pads seem to last a long time (I never changed the pads on the SWB and they seemed to have plenty of life left when I gave the bike away), and overall they give me no compelling reason to contemplate changing them for anything else:

Finally we come to the tires, which are 29x3.0 Vee T-Fattys:

Though of course you can order the LWB with smooth tires if you're not going to be using it in a mountain bike capacity.

They come with tubes, but converting them to tubeless was completely straightforward, and so far they've been quite durable:

I believe they're even e-bike rated, which could explain the durability, though I also have no idea what exactly what qualifies a tire for e-bike use so I probably shouldn't speculate.

Anyway, all of this is by way of giving you an up-close look at this bike in case you're actually considering buying one, and to assure you it comprises quite a solid package.  (Yes, I've only had this bike since July, but after many happy and trouble-free miles on the SWB I'm pretty confident in Jeff Jones's ability to spec a bicycle.)

Oh, and you'll also be pleased to know my new Pearl Izumi clothes pair well with jorts:

Somebody really ought to market a pair of $500 performance jorts, it seems like a no-brainer.