Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Tease - Spankin' new Rock Lobster track frame!

I shouldn't even make this post without pics but am super psyched. Anyway, my Brown Santa just departed and I'm sitting here at work with my Rock Lobster frame beside my desk counting the hours until I can go home and get intimate with it...oh, sorry about that mental image but you get my drift. I'll post pics of frame tomorrow and pics of built bike the day after. It's Reynolds 853, Paul Comp. track ends with adjusters, roughly 58x58, pump peg, bottle bosses (don't start on m about bottle bosses unless you live somewhere with more heat & humidity than the sticky FL gulf coast...or as we like to say, L.A....as in lower Alabama), 38 deg. rake straight blade steel fork (Columbus steel for fork), pearl-ish white powdercoat, just absolutely stunning. Beautifully welded and detailed by Paul Sadoff who I highly recommend to anyone looking for any kind of frame...his website is in serious need of redesign, but he says he's working it. Total damage to my wallet was $940 including shipping...think it's a bargain for a custom frame these days.

Mish-mash of parts sitting at home awaiting installation are TA Pista crank & rings, TA BB, Miche cog & carrier, Campy headset, Nitto bar & stem, Surly "new" medium flange hubs w/Ambrosio Excellence rims, Conti tires, Brooks saddle...a fairly international kind of thing it'll be with U.S., France, Italy, Japan, and Germany represented...prob ought to throw Taiwan in there as that's likely where the Surly hubs are made.

Thanks for sharing my excitement!

Ya....you could have waited til you had pics to post. Now I gotta go to the damn Rock Lobster website! Damn you!

What kind of a frame is named after a B-52's song?

Probably an awesome one.

Whats the deal with Rock Lobster? Paul got real popular in the early 90's, apparently had a real backorder thing going, and now you can buy them in England for a couple of hundred bucks. If you check the Brit mags, some shop is selling them very cheap. I often wonder if they're not made in Taiwan versions or something

Apparently he's licensed the name to those folks selling the frames in UK and I'll bet you're right about Taiwan...I notice Merlin does the same thing in UK. He is still backordered as my frame took 11 weeks for him to build - he quoted me 10-12 weeks so he hit the sweet spot time-wise. Paul made his name doing cyclocross and ss mtb frames. Anyway, great guy, great service, great experience. Pics coming...

Apologies for pic quality...will have to remember to take smaller pics so as not to lose resolution during resizing.

As you can see, kitty likes Paul Comp. dropouts/trackends...but she doesn't have a tail so what does she know...

Very very nice. Now, take the day off and go finish that bad boy! We need more pics, completed pics, pics that make us all a little teary-eyed. You get the point. :)

Dave

AH! A black cat...run!

That fork makes me want to rob you.

oh, its so beautiful!

Could you hurry up and finish that please.
You're just mean.

Awww, I'm not trying to be mean...had to wait overnight for Framesaver to dry...it's hard to sit here at work today. Am off for next five days, though, and ready to ride. 165, please don't hork my fork!

165, please don't hork my fork!


He'd rather fork your hork.

He'd rather fork your hork.


O.k. man that avatar has GOT to be the funniest yet!!!!

L8R

nice. the graphics are simple and cool. i don't care much for the Paul's dropouts, but it ain't my bike.

j-

O.k. man that avatar has GOT to be the funniest yet!!!!

L8R
I've got it, sohi !!! Why don't you photoshop some sunglasses onto the cute girls bum?

I miss that bum too!

Apologies for pic quality...will have to remember to take smaller pics so as not to lose resolution during resizing.
Nice cat. Bike is ok too. :D

You do realise white isn't a colour, right? :D

Just curiously, what geometry did you settle on? Good to see I'm not the only tall bastard, too.

sorry, but that IS pretty. and i am not talking about the cat.

Thylacine, I'm not sure on geometry as in I don't know exact angles other than to say HT is about 74/75 and ST is about 73/74...I do know fork rake is 38 degrees. I didn't spec angles, just asked Paul to make it quick/nimble feeling...wanted it to handle somewhere between dedicated track and traditional road geometry. I did tell him I needed something close to 58x58 and asked him to extend HT by a couple cm so I could run a Nitto drop stem (just because it's cool looking), but left the rest up to him and his experience. You know better than anyone here - isn't that what customers should let framebuilders do?

Departing on first ride in a few minutes! Pics and details coming later.

Departing on first ride in a few minutes! Pics and details coming later.

Ok - you finished it, you're about to go out, and you take the time to log on and rub all our noses in it?

You are MEAN!!!!!!!!!!!

I would have rode it THEN logged in to gloat.

You do realise white isn't a colour, right?
You're absolutely right. It's a COLOR!

Built pics! Quality not the best, but there's a 100Kb file size limit, dangit. Thanks for putting up with me thru this...

And a few more... Rode it with bullhorns this morning on my reg 21 mile loop, will do again with drops this afternoon. I love how it rides, handles, etc etc etc. It was my first ever custom frame and well worth it. Retiring my Fuji track - will sell it to a local and get somebody else into fixie riding.

Thanks again for putting up with all the teasing...but I was simply too excited to wait. I learned a lot hanging on this forum for the past year...and from Harris/Sheldon/etc. Thanks again all you fixie freak friends.

good stem, lame brake (hey - this is how this word looks when it is spelled right).
Ditch the brake, buy a strong chain

About the white - I've had almost every other color, but never white...saw a pic of a Land Shark in white and really liked it. I considered gold but couldn't quite bring myself to do it as I am not a pimp. Copper would have been cool, though.

I like the Paul Comp dropouts/track ends. There's a lot of horizontal room to move on them...have a 45/17 on now, but could accomodate anywhere from a 48/18 to a 44/15 without running out of room and having to change the chain. The adjuster screws can be removed if you don't like them.

You do realise white isn't a colour, right? :D

Just curiously, what geometry did you settle on? Good to see I'm not the only tall bastard, too.

You are right, white isn't one color it is all the colors in the spectrum at once. Not a color, many colors. Black on the other hand is not a color.

Actually white is the absence of color and black is the combination of all colors.

Actually I don't even remember anymore.

wow...this is great. Does anyone in here ride or do you all just pretend?

Sniff my saddle and find out.

There used to be a guy on this forum that rode bikes but he went away on a boat for awhile.

Actually white is the absence of color and black is the combination of all colors.

I beg to differ. Color is light, and light is composed of many colors - those we see are the colors of the visual spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Objects absorb certain wavelengths and reflect others back to the viewer. We perceive these wavelengths as color. Absolute black is the result of the the entire spectrum being absorbed by a surface or object spectral white white is the result of the entire spectrum being reflected to the viewer.

Hue fight!

Sniff my saddle and find out.
Don't take you avatar that literally.

wow...this is great. Does anyone in here ride or do you all just pretend?

Why ride when we can emulate you? We should change the name to TheWrenchForums in honour of you, oh noble one. Can you insult me again? I'd rather be insulted by you then ride. The satisfaction is that much greater.

My apologies to dabern for my off-topic post. Lovely bike BTW...I'm liking those Brooks saddles more and more!

Actually white is the absence of color and black is the combination of all colors.

depends if you are talking about a subtractive or additive colour space. in print its subtractive
(CMYK) while on a computer screen its additive.

Apologies for pic quality...will have to remember to take smaller pics so as not to lose resolution during resizing.

Elegant job. I have often wondered if the 853 tube material would be worth the extra cost. What is your opinion as to stiffness/comfort/ect? It probably is not fair to judge it against the Fuji as they are not in the same price category. But subjectively, is it stiff or soft and compliant?

fixedgearhead

It is stiff! I did an admittedly basic BB rigidity test by pushing bottomed crank inwards towards frame and eyeballing deflection...it was less than my rather stiff AL roadie. It's not bad vertically, though, just not as "springy" as I had imagined it would be. Surprised me since my last steel bike (besides Fuji) was a '96 or '97 Bianchi cyclocross made out of Deda Zero-something which had that traditional steel magic carpet thing going on. Think it has as much to do with the chainstays (they are really tall vertically at the BB, almost bladed) as the main triangle. Paul at R.L. also told me he made it on the stiff and sturdy side of center vice the light and springy side. I think, like most materials, you could make it feel anyway you wanted depending on how you shaped the tubeset and put it together.

That's quite an attractive bike. The straight blade fork really gives is presence. I'm really starting to dig straight forks.

It is stiff! I did an admittedly basic BB rigidity test by pushing bottomed crank inwards towards frame and eyeballing deflection...it was less than my rather stiff AL roadie. It's not bad vertically, though, just not as "springy" as I had imagined it would be. Surprised me since my last steel bike (besides Fuji) was a '96 or '97 Bianchi cyclocross made out of Deda Zero-something which had that traditional steel magic carpet thing going on. Think it has as much to do with the chainstays (they are really tall vertically at the BB, almost bladed) as the main triangle. Paul at R.L. also told me he made it on the stiff and sturdy side of center vice the light and springy side. I think, like most materials, you could make it feel anyway you wanted depending on how you shaped the tubeset and put it together.
The straight bladed fork may be some of the cause for "Stiffness". I have not ridden many bikes with straight forks but of those that I have ridden, seemed stiffer. That may not be an objective observation as there could have been many other factors in play, but, it makes some kind of sense if you think that there is little deflection in a straight line as opposed to a curved line. Either way I am glad you like the bike and are happy with it. It would be terrible to commission a bike by leaving it up to the frame builder, and not being happy with the result.

fixedgearhead

i have to admit, i wasn't digging the white paint job when I saw it just as a frame, but now it's built up, it looks sweet. I dig the polished bullhorns too. Good work, and the brooks finishs her off perfectly.

What are those thingies in the rear drops?

They're chain tensioners...basically just threaded rod with thumbscrews...pushes the wheel out rather than pulling like BMX style tensioners...that's how Paul Components does it.