Jeff Jones-Freethinker, Freerider, Freebuilder

Jeff Jones dubs each bike he produces "One," as no two machines are created the same.

By Ben Delaney

Jeff Jones dubs each bike he produces "One," as no two machines are created the same. Hours of research and customer interviews form the foundation for each steel or titanium bike built at Jeff Jones Custom Bicycles. Jones’ knowledge of his craft has flowed from many sources. As a bike shop owner, he observed customers’ buying and riding habits. As a framebuilder at GT, he learned the various applications and properties of metals, as well the relationship between design and ride characteristics. As a quality control manager-also at GT-he developed an eagle’s eye for the tiniest defects. And since his childhood, he has been having a blast pedaling bikes of all shapes and sizes.

These days Jones lives in the woods of Medford, Oregon, where he builds unique steel and titanium bicycles. He has U.S. patents pending on a handlebar design and a "3-D Spaceframe" frame design, which features seat stays that run straight to the head tube. Although a few polished concepts figure into multiple bikes, nothing is assumed when he begins designing each piece.

"I’m a freebuilder," Jones says with a laugh. "I don’t even have model numbers. I build specifically for how each person is going to ride."

Many companies tout "custom" bicycles. Sometimes this means a rider feeds the builder his desired tube lengths and angles and a bike is built. Sometimes, as with Trek’s Project One bikes, this means the rider chooses component spec and a paint and sticker job. But some framebuilders grill their customers like medical insurance practitioners, extracting a holistic picture of an individual’s needs, quirks and desires.

"Do you have any pre-existing health conditions? A bad back? Have you broken bones? Where? What positions are comfortable and uncomfortable?"

Small builders like Jones, Seven and Serotta take this meticulous approach, accounting for their customers’ riding styles and preferences as well as body geometry. Jones painstakingly interviews customers on everything from past injuries and crashes to whether they typically roll, wheelie or jump obstacles.

"It’s like a psychoanalysis-Who are you? How do you ride?" Jones said. "I’m not going to try to change somebody’s style, but rather build around it."

However, Jones discards the traditional measuring format when building mountain bikes. "For road bikes things like aerodynamics play a major factor. But I don’t believe the traditional measurements and formulas developed to find the ideal road fit are ideal for a mountain bike," Jones said. "On dirt what is important is how you want the bike to handle and feel. When you’re building a bike to perform well for someone who wants a stable ride on fire roads to look at birds and trees, or for someone who wants to dirt jump-traditional fit formulas are less relevant."

DR: How is what you do different than any other framebuilder?

JJ: I don’t confine my designs to traditional layouts or geometries. It is important to physically fit a bike, but you also want the geometry to fit how you ride. I consider things like pedal thickness and width to determine the best bottom bracket height for a specific rider. I also consider chainstay length, which has a dramatic affect on handling, as well as how much tire/mud clearance is needed. People ride differently and the geometry should reflect that. Also, I build the whole bike frame, fork, handlebars, wheels-the whole thing-for a specific rider.

DR: When did your custom business begin?

JJ: I started "Jones Bikes" a year ago. I moved to Oregon and knew I wanted to build bikes again. This was just after I sold my bike shops and was able to live without a regular income for a while.

I’ve been building frames since before I worked at GT. I was welding as a kid with my dad. I did many things at GT-building sample frames, quality control, really learning about everything-the process from the raw tubes to the bike going to the end consumer. Those were really the glory days at GT, and it was a wonderful, educational experience.

But just riding my bike for years has been just as useful as my industry experience-it’s all just one wonderful mix of bikeness.

DR: How did your philosophy behind custom bikes begin?

JJ: I knew that bikes could be improved. I wanted to make them better. I knew that things like better lateral stiffness and more vertical compliance could be designed into a frame, but only if I stepped away from the traditional frame design.

The front triangle of a regular frame is not the best design for withstanding the lateral forces of mountain biking and the rear triangle is stiffer vertically than it needs to be. I wanted to change this.

DR: What do you want your bikes to do?

JJ: I want my bikes to be what a specific rider needs. There isn’t really a simple answer; it’s more of a process. I’m always thinking about what is, what can be. For example, my handlebars (page 71, lower right) came about as a progression of thought. Regular handlebars don’t fit the natural angle of most people’s hands. Handlebars were never really designed from an ergonomic standpoint, and bar-ends were only an afterthought. I rode some regular bars at Interbike, and they felt so unnatural and bizarre. I want my bikes to provide the best riding experience and I’m not going to be limited to what is considered normal to do it.

The double diamond bike was designed in 1896. Why are we keeping the frame the same even though our riding styles and technology are completely different? I’ve been reading history books so much I can see the evolution of different designs in my head. For example, today’s curved road bars evolved from moustache bars. The bars were slowly bent and lowered until you had the drop position. Then when brake levers were added, suddenly you had the on-the-hoods position. There was no conscious thought. So that’s what I want to do-add conscious thought to the design process.

DR: How about suspension?

JJ: It’s great. But it depends on what you want out of your ride. If you want to go really fast over rocky stuff-suspension is great. Personally, I love the ride of a rigid bike. When the bike starts doing things for me, when it is no longer an extension of my body I feel I’ve lost something. I rode full suspension bikes for years. But since I built up this last hardtail and have been riding that, I’m having more fun the ever.

DR: What’s up with your four-legged rigid titanium fork?

JJ: It’s just a light and strong fork. If you went to any mechanical engineer and asked for the lightest, strongest design, nobody would give you two fork legs headed straight down. That’s silly. Basically it is a truss fork design from the 1930s, when bikes started to look like motorcycles. My fork is triangulated. A normal fork bends just under the lower headset-where all the energy is focused. With a triangulated design, the force is distributed throughout the whole structure. It’s not just two legs relying on their own brute strength.

I’m doing stuff like five-foot drops with no problems. The fork weighs 1.6 pounds, has enormous mud clearance and very precise steering. The upper and lower headset are both upper headsets and there is no crown race. I also have a 2.4-pound, one-piece system that includes fork, stem, steerer tube and handlebar. Things work better when they are designed to work together.

DR: Your 3-D Spaceframe is striking. What is the logic behind the multiple top tubes?

JJ: Thank you. People do comment about the aesthetic, but it wasn’t designed for looks. I tried to push the laterally stiff, vertically compliant envelope as far as I could. The shock from the rear wheel is not driven into the seat tube and up the seat post on this design, but dissipated into the curved seat stays. The rear end is closer to a parallelogram than a perfect triangle. Also, the frame is horizontally triangulated and has four tubes connected to the head tube to improve lateral stiffness and strength. You can feel the difference. The seatstays and chainstays are ovalized in a horizontal direction, again to give more vertical compliance with less lateral flex. Also on my singlespeed version, I have 15.1" chainstays. Normally they’re about 17 inches. Having the rear wheel tucked under you like that works great for climbing out of the saddle.

DR: How do you want your work to be perceived?

JJ: I want people to see what I’m making for what it is. I’m 33 and I’m blown away by what I can do now, in terms of riding. I’m doing so much more than I ever have, because I have a bike that fits me like a glove. When I sit on a production bike it’s nice, but I’m sitting on top of it. I’m not a part of it. I don’t have the part man-part machine feeling I get with my bikes.

So now that I’ve done if for myself-built a bike that is an extension of myself-I want to do it for others. I feel like I’ve considered and questioned every element of bicycle design. I didn’t assume anything. And I want to do that for some other bike lovers.

DR: What do you charge?

JJ: Anywhere from $1,900 to $3,000 for a full custom frame and from $3,500 to $7,000 for a complete custom bike. I don’t plan on making much more than 50 bikes a year. The handlebars are $159 to $199. For more information on Jeff Jones Custom Bicycles, visit www.jonesbikes.com.

More on Jeff Jones

We’ve written quite a bit about Jones and his bikes through the years. Here’s a quick recap:

Karen’s first impression of his titanium SpaceFrame

Karen’s full review of the titanium SpaceFrame (from Issue #141)

Our Industry Insider interview from 2010

Justin’s first impressions of the steel diamond frame in touring mode

Justin’s first impression of the fat front truss fork

A report from Jones’ visit to Dirt Rag HQ in summer 2008

A look at Jones’ Taiwanese-made steel SpaceFrame