Gears for Jones... Cheap

This has been a terrible fall for riding. Rain and temps that bounce right around freezing have made the trails way to sloppy to ride. I've been riding my Jones a bit on the road, but the limitations of single speed gearing quickly become apparent then. Coupled with my desire to try a cheap, wide range, eight speed cassette, I ended up adding some gears to the Jones:

Yep, I'm using the big wheel Altus derailer... to match my big wheels, of course! It's moving across a Sunrace 11-40 8 speed cassette. This cassette cost all of about $20. To get the derailer to clear the big cogs, I had to install a longer B tension screw from the hardware store ($1, M4 x 20 would be about right, my M4 x 25 is too long)

To keep the cheap theme going, I also used my cheapie Sunrace thumbshifter, mounted a bit inboards. I can still reach it here pretty easily, but it does interfere when I try to put my hands up on the front hooks. I miss that position when I'm cruising on the road.

Overall, it works OK. Shifting is a bit slow and noisy, but it works adequately for my low standards. Eight speeds might have big gear jumps, but coming from a single speed background, I don't notice them.

Of course, now I feel the urge to buy some road wheels and tires. That would really blow my cheap theme out of the water.

All that being said, I do have my eye on some nice Shimano 11 speed parts. That may become a winter project, depending on my bike budget. The buttery smoothness of Shimano indexing is pretty compelling.