Stuart, did you consider a Jones when you bought your Stooge, and if so what made you plump for the Stooge?
Not really ... I could never entertain a spaceframe / truss fork due to the price although they are lovely. I'm sure the Jones diamond frame rides really well but it's still over £800 for F+F ... it's 2 steel triangles welded together, I can't see that it's going to be twice as good as 2 other steel triangles welded together.
The bike that I put most miles on is built around another 2 steel triangles welded together and it cost £120, so even a Stooge is towards the top end of my scale. However, having spoken to Andy (Mr Stooge) I realised that we share quite a few ideas and a common outlook, I like his frames but I also like his attitude.
Thanks, Stuart. I know what you mean about the price - I was really surprised at how expensive some mountain bike frames are. In fact, I could even persuade myself that a Jones is 'cheap' in comparison with some!
It's really difficult to decide. I'm tempted to give the Stooge a go, although I've also started looking at the Singular Swift and the Salsa El Mariachi, and possibly a few others. However, maybe their geometries are totally different to the Stooge/Jones. I've exchanged a couple of emails with Andy (Mr Stooge) and he does seem very helpful and easy to deal with. The Jones is nice, but as you say, even the diamond/unicrown version is almost double the price of a Stooge, plus it needs a £170 front hub (it also means no dyno-hub front wheel). I'm thinking that a Stooge might cost around £1200 complete, whereas a Jones with fat tyres is going to be a touch over £2000. Deciding on the build kit would be the next problem! I'd be interested to hear how you're planning on building up your Stooge. I'd consider building it as a singlespeed and seeing how I get on with it, and then changing to gears later if necessary.
I'd be interested to hear how you're planning on building up your Stooge.
Mine won't be wearing anything exotic ... 1 x 10 with 30t on the front and 36 out back will provide more than enough range. Wheels will be whatever came off my old green inbred although I may well get a Veocity Dually rim laced up for the front at some point. XT brakes that I picked up secondhand and whatever else I've got laid about to finish it off ... might break out my old tartan saddle for it
Thanks. Yes, I know Dave at Bothy Bikes, and I would buy a Jones (or anything other than a Stooge) from him if that's the way I decide to go. I think I'd better go and see him, and maybe try to have a go on a singlespeed before doing anything rash.
I've been trying to think if there's any way I could cut costs be taking parts off other bikes, but everything seems to be incompatible with a modern 29er!
Oh, and congrats on the HT560, krembo! Did you have your El Mariachi set up as a singlespeed or geared, and with suspension or rigid forks? Presumably you weren't too uncomfortable with however it's configured.
Getting curious, I looked up the Stooge geo the other day, there's a factory frame drawing on the site. It's actually not very 'Jones' like imo, the fork rake is the same and that's about it. Front end height fairly normal, chainstay will set up same as it's down to gearing as much as anything (32-18 gives 438-440mm), front-centre similar to most HT 29ers, BB height's normal for a 100-120mm forked 29er that's designed around a 475mm /100mm-corrected sus fork rather than the 'how low can you go' of the Jones. Visual and intentions link more than numbers maybe. Looks fun tho, and none of that is a negative.
Interesting reading about the Stooge design. In terms of getting the weight off one's hands, it's somewhat similar to Geoff Apps' Cleland design. The thing I like least about my otherwise very lovely, recently resurrected '92 Xizang frame is the way it pushes too much weight onto my hands. I've tried a shorter stem, but it screws up the handling
^ A good point. The Cleland is a really interesting bike. I sometimes think bikes took an evolutionary wrong turn when the XC-style MTB found suspension forks as the answer to overly weight-forward rider positioning that MTBs had then. It took full-on DH bikes to develop to get us back to a less extreme position on normal MTBs.
The most interesting thing I found on the Jones site a while back was a sketch where Jeff had drawn arcs centred on the rear axle over a side-on pic of the bike, looking at the 'back seat of a bus' effect on the front axle and grip position and showing why moving the grips back is so effective. The opposite extreme of that is my CX bike with grips right over the front axle, that I go OTB of regularly : )
Sorry, mostly unrelated to singlespeeds.. unless you're wondering if long stems and XC race postions are the best way to gurn up hills : )
Indeed, as I've seen said of the Cleland: why would you use a bike which is largely based on trickle-down race technology when you're doing an average of 6mph off-road? I'm aware that super-human endurance racers can go a lot faster than this, but I think it's a fair point for many mere mortals.
