I own an old Rock Lobster mountain bike. I thought I'd tell you a little bit about it...
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Because of its vintage it's got a few neat old-school features, like a rather unique braze-on behind the seat-collar for a Hite-Rite, and a couple braze-ins on the main triangle for a portage-strap... and, to accommodate the strap the bottle cage mounts are both located on the down-tube. But otherwise, in terms of design details and geometry, the bike is decades ahead of its time. And, for the record, it's also a blast to ride!

I built a new rear wheel for it a couple years ago. All by myself. No, seriously. I did. I even put fancy anodized gold and blue spoke nipples on it... and I got the every-other nipple-color thing right... and I got the hub-logo direction thing right... and I got a whole bunch of other things right, too.
The wheel I built is a Surly fixed-free flip-flop hub on a Mavic something-or-other hoop. I've got it set-up with an easy-climbing 34x20 gear on both sides, which is a great singlespeed gear around these parts, but a fairly low fixed-gear gear for anywhere that isn't dead flat. But still, sometimes I ride it fixed in the woods anyway. Mostly, though, fixed off-road in Flagstaff is just stupid-hard and no fun, no matter what gear you're running. So, really, I usually ride it as a singlespeed, and coast a lot and do bunnyhops and smile and have fun and stuff on downhills... and just talk-tough about how awesome riding fixed-gears on singletrack is.
But, really, it's not.
Here are some other pictures of me having fun riding this bike:
UPDATES:
Here are some other pictures of me having fun riding this bike:
- In May 2010 I noticed a crack in the Rock Lobster's seat-tube.
- In July 2010 I sent the frame back to Paul to be repaired.
- He returned it to me, fixed, in early September 2010. He refused to accept payment for the repair.
- I had it repainted in October 2010.
- Since that time, I have replaced the old Suntour cranks with a much prettier set of Cook Bros. and installed a Thompson post instead of the well-worn Kalloy. The portage-strap, which I made from a piece of an old back-pack (and for which, as noted above, there are braze-ins installed on the frame) comes and goes.
- In September 2016, I replaced the dropbars with a stylie set of 28" wide chrome-plated genuine Nitto Bullmoose bars and a pair of super-giant old-school Shimano M762 brake levers. Cool!
- In June 2019, I replaced the Bullmoose bars with a fairly generic 680mm matte black Answer Alumilite handlebar with a nice rise to it and some good sweep, too. Just for fun, at the same time, I also reinstalled the "the incredibly-huge [160mm!] original quill stem" which hasn't been on the bike since the day I bought it back in 1990-something. Likewise, the super-giant Shimano M762 brake-levers were traded during this update for a period-correct pair of gently-used SS-5s, black with the plasti-dipped handles, natch.
- In October 2020, I replaced the 160mm stem with a custom fillet 130mm Rock Lobster stem, put the Shimano M762 levers back on (again. They work much better with the BR-MT62 cantis) and reinstalled the Hite Rite. I also fashioned a new leather portage strap from an old belt and installed it using the original braze-ins on the top- and seat-tubes.