Cross Lobster and Santa What?

Press Launch

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What happens when a framebuilder fancies building himself a new bike with a show coming up? You get a mad collection of odd tubing (externally ribbed Tange), some super neat cable routing that would probably cost a fortune to do, but which still looks great, a custom fork with twin caliper mounts and lugs and a matching stem, again with neat internal routing. Add to that an extended seat tube, a huge head tube just to see what the new Chris King headset is like and just the one gear. The bike does have a name – the Ninety Eight – after the Oldsmobile (actually after the Public Enemy song about the Oldsmobile), and Paul from Rock Lobster doesn’t reckon he’ll sell many (even with normal sized headtubes) but we thought it was worth showing off.

Paul at Rock Lobster can be found at www.rocklobstercycles.com

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In all its glory, the rather limited Rock Lobster ribbed 'cross bike.
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The beercan headtube is an experiment to house the new King internal headset. Check out the ribbed tubing and that lugged fork crown.

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Paul's super-neat dropouts
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The brake cable runs inside a guide in the top tube all the way to the wishbone seatstays.
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Super minimal seatpost sits in the extended seat tube. You can see the externally ribbed tubing in the sun.
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How neat is this internal cable guide leading to the Paul's twin pivot 'cross brake

Meanwhile, down the road at Santa Cruz, they’re building up an odd looking bike of their own. It’ll be revealed in all its glory at the Sea Otter, but here’s a shot of it going together. And top marks to their top wrench Josh for being the first person we’ve ever seen to install a headset using just a hammer. Look for the madness in our Sea Otter coverage this weekend.

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We could explain what's going on, but you'd never believe us...
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Old and the new. Here's a stack of new Jackal frames from Santa Cruz, next to the last few of the old, curved shape ones.
Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 22 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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