Steel 29er going to Bend, Oregon

This one has Paragon 'Rocker' dropouts to tension the chain. The rider asked specifically for this setup.  

I'm starting to change the look and the geometry of my MTB frames to better reflect the style of trail riding that people do now as opposed to the '80's and '90's. Frames are a lot longer and slacker in the front than they used to be. I was not too keen on the change until I rode a bike with the newer numbers. I'm impressed with how fun a bike with the newer specs can be.

It is my hope that the owner of this bike finds it to be a lot of fun-and hopefully he will get on some podiums with it.
 

Steel road frame with old school geometry

That's right. The geometry for this one came from an early '70's Peugeot PA-10. This was not an expensive model but it had a great ride quality so I don't blame the customer for having me use the frame for a template. His goal is to have a bike that steers like his old bike but has modern components. He will have a rim brake setup with Dura Ace 12 speed Di II. Quite an unusual setup but this is no ordinary build. 

The customer will bring his old PA-10 and we will do an A-B test ride when his new bike is all together. I really hope that he likes it. I have only built a couple other frames with this geometry but I do like the ride.

 

Steel is steel

In case you thought it was something else.  This is a rim brake steel road frame, all 3 lb.9 oz. of it. 

This is the 'Ultimundo' model that will be paired with and Enve fork and a King headset. I ride one just like this and have been for probably about 7 years and I see no reason to switch yet. 

 

Steel gravel frame for a local

This one has dropper post routing for the new short-travel Enve dropper post that I have not seen yet. The fully built bike will feature a lot of the Enve catalog along with a Sram wireless group. The tires might be as large as 700x45.

The weight of the rider is low so the tube set it pretty light, yielding a 4 lb. 6 oz. frame for a 6'1" rider.

 

Steel gravel frame going to San Jose, Calif.

The head tube is a little different on this one. It is an integrated style from Bicycle Fabrication supply- a place where I buy a lot of aluminum from but have been checking out their steel products as of late. 

This frame is pretty stout, made for the rocky slopes of the Marin headlands. It should take the bouncy terrain in style.

 

Monster cross steel frame for a tall rider

There's a lot going on with this one- dropper post routing, fender mounts and three bottle mounts. The frame will be paired up with a Whiskey CXLR fork that has bottle mounts and rack/fender mounts so in all, this bike will carry five bottles. 

 

Running it up the flag pole

See this ? I built this frame in late 1978 or early 1979.....somewhere about then. Originally it was branded "Routier"after the street I lived on at the time. I had a small shop set up in a garage in back of the house where I rented a room when I first moved to Santa Cruz. I only built two frames there and this was one of them, the fourth frame that I had built. When I first started building frames I painted them myself with not the greatest results . I had this frame repainted a few years after I had built it and by that time I was no longer living on Routier street so I rebranded my frames with my last name. This 'Sadoff' brand lasted only around two years. I didn't have the money to get decals made so I hand brushed the logos on with paint- that is what you see here on this frame. There were maybe a dozen Sadoffs before I changed to Rock Lobster in early 1984.

So why am I retelling this not so significant bit of my building history ? I have a plan to re-release the Sadoff brand, even if it does not represent a large number of frames that I built and the style I built back then does not reflect what I do now. What I am thinking is that with the treasure trove of cast lugs and NOS tubing I have enough material to make a bunch of late '70's early '80's style road frames. The idea is to take a style I built back then when I was a hobbyist and do it with 45 years experience. The frames will have simple graceful lugs, 1"threaded steerers and be made for rim brakes. Sure, not much call for frames like this these days and very little call for them from a builder such as myself who strayed from this style as soon as mountain bikes emerged. 

So if anyone is interested , they can get in touch with me at paul@rocklobstercycles.com and find out what this is all about. I doubt I'll use up all the materials before I'm dead but I'm definitely interested in building some nice riding, nice looking lugged frames with materials that have been out of production for many years. I'll be building the prototype ( Pretty ironic to call it that when it will be identical in many ways to something I built 45 years ago..)  some time in the next few months when I have a window of time. I'll get the frame and fork painted with catalyzed polyurathane just like what was used in the '80's . 

I guess there will be at least one of these made-I'll hand letter it as well. Time will tell if anyone out there wants one. Either way, it will be a nice way to mark the 45th year since I built the first few frames. Will I re-issue the Routier brand ? Probably not......seems like a bit of a reach since not only did I move away from that street over 40 years ago and there were probably only 6-7 Routier branded frames built. OK everyone, don't rush the stage........he says to an empty auditorium........
 

Steel gravel frame going to Switzerland

Yes- I'm back on steel for a few weeks until I get back to the last pre-season aluminum batch coming up in mid to late May. This one has the slacker longer geometry that this particular shop -Cyclecraft- is pretty big on. Chainstays are a healthy 439 mm........or at least that's what I remember from the drawing. 

This one should be nice and stable at high speed. I used one of the newer Nova tapered head tubes and gave it a little bit of machining to make for some collars at the ends. This one weighs in at 4 lb. 7 oz. and is made of Columbus Zona for the most part.

 

Path racer going to Cupertino, Calif.

Not quite done with this one yet but it is close. I just need the right handlebar and the pedals. 

There's some nice Nor-Cal parts on this one- Phil Wood hubs and a White Industry headset . The crankset is the hard to find Sram Omnium. There's a nice Thomson masterpiece seat post- not Nor Cal but some good US made stuff. Rims are Hed Belgium- these are the first wheels I have built this year and the went together really well. 

 

Drop bar MTB frame for a local

Yes, that's what this is- room for 29x2" tires and all sorts of attachment points.The fork is a Whiskey MCX, a little longer and beefier than the usual CX fork.

I had not installed the headbadge until later in the day after I had time to take photos.The color is called "Grape madness" .

 

A royal flush beats a full house

A truck full of frames just got delivered to the heat treat/powdercoat shop. That's 11 frames built in a little over three weeks. I'm pretty beat but very happy to have this batch done. Next big aluminum batch will happen in mid-late May. In the mean time it will be a bit of shop cleaning , a couple of frame repairs and a bunch of steel frames that are overdue. 

 

7005 mass start track frame

This is the fourth track frame I have built in 2023 and I do have more on order. I think that this will be the largest annual number of fixed gear frames I have built in a decade or more. A couple of Tracklocross frames have been built as well so I'll be over a half-dozen for sure. 

This is probably the last frame in the current batch of eleven aluminum frames. I am also doing a repair on a team frame so that will make a dozen going to the heat treater, maybe as soon as tomorrow morning. I might try and squeeze in one more but I really should just stop at this amount. This was a lot of building in a short amount of time- everything went well but I'm ready to slow down a bit.

 

WCCX frame going to NY state

As I get closer to the end of this batch the spots to hang frames are nearly all filled up. At the end of the week this whole batch of 11-12 frames will go to heat treatment and powdercoating. After that they have a brief time at the shop while I apply the decals and then they are off to the clear coat shop along with any forks that need to be painted.