Jones Gets Less Cheap

There was a rumor out there--which turned out to be true--that Shimano was changing their policies in 2019 to now allow European imports into the US so cheaply. That motivated me to line up an order from Chainreactioncycles with some new bits for my Jones:

It's a new SLX drivetrain, and even some swanky ESI grips. Some of this came from Amazon with a gift card I had. The CRC prices are nice, but not earth shattering: maybe $50 cheaper than the same stuff from Universal Cycles, which was about $50 cheaper than buying the whole kit as one set from Amazon.

I'm using a 34t ring up front to give me a bit more road speed, paired with an 11x46 11 speed cassette in the rear. It turns out the normal 116 link chain is just a bit too short, so I had to grab another chain to get it to work. I have many spare links for the future now.

SLX ring, crank, cassette, derailer, with an XT bottom bracket.

I also got a new rear tire, wider than my old FBN, but it's still a bit limited by my narrower Bontrager rim:

Yep, more SLX up front:

I have to say, these ESI grips do feel very nice. Maybe they're worth the $30 premium over cheap foam:

This is unrelated to my new stuff except to show that adding the rear derailer cable illustrates where Jones needs to add a third cable guide to the top tube. Two isn't enough:

The Shimano stuff shifts fine. I had to do a bit of fine tuning with the B tension screw to align the derailer height to the cogs, but otherwise it was just a matter of pulling the cable tight and cinching it down. It's so much more robust than Shimano indexing from the 7, 8 and 9 speed days.

It's interesting that after working for Honda for over twenty years, I have a greater affinity for Shimano. I can see some of the same Japanese corporate values in their products: light effort, simple operation, humble stuff that just works.