Two weeks ago, the whole family did a road trip to the Bay Area and one of the reasons was so that I could meet with Paul Sadoff in Santa Cruz to talk about my custom Rock Lobster cyclocross bike. It was a good meeting. First off, he was a good guy and easy to get along with.
When I went into his shop, it was small but filled with stuff. Lots of his personal bikes hanging off the rafters but it was great to see his shop. Many of his equipment were designed by him. To me that's good. It means he knows what he's doing and if not, he would have updated it in his 20+ years of framebuilding. With all his years of bikes, if it didn't work, he would have replaced it already.
What I found is that we have similar thoughts on bikes. It should work well and just be used instead of hanging on a the wall. Don't get me wrong, his bikes look great but not like the "artisans" who spend many more hours to make it look pretty. To me, this bike is for racing and in the off season it will be riding on fire roads. This bike will be loved but a racing bike gets used hard.
After getting the initial desires of the bike, he measured my current bike and me. Apparently my legs are longer than the average person my height. When he measured my arms, he said that he hasn't seen that measurement unless it was on a 5'1" woman. Yeah, yeah, I know all about that from my rock climbing days and I've heard much harsher criticism from friends.
This bike will be a steel cross bike capable of up to 38c tires, have a crowned fork with straight tubing (I love that look), sterling silver headbadge (I love that too), pump peg, chain hanger, no fender eyelets and set up for linear brakes. It will be his celeste green team color but with small decals. Along with that I'm getting a Cane Creek 110 headset, Thomson X4 stem and Thomson seatpost from him. This thing should be a beauty.
It was great getting verification from him on my gear selection. Although his team is sponsored by Chris King, he runs Cane Creek 110 headset. He feels they are the best headsets made. Also on seatpost and stem, when I mentioned that I wanted Thomson, he points to his bike and tells me that he had an Easton seatpost but only lasted 1.5 years and now runs a Thomson. Thomson's are light but super strong. Even on stem setups he likes the 0 degree rise stems with 20mm spacers above and below, just as I was telling him my preference for the same. Then we talked about hubs and I told him I just got some DT Swiss 240s on my mountain bike and he says that the hubset on the dream mountain bike he's building up. I think he's going to be the perfect builder for me.
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