The hardest part...

I have purchased 2 custom bicycle frames in my relatively short time of post-cycle evolutionary re-invention. My first bike was a waltworks road bike, and it was (is) awesome. Anybody who has a 10 minute convo with me about bikes knows I prefer steel. It rules as far as longevity. If you pity my choice of a weighty material, I pity your buying into slavery to commercial ridiculousness. At any rate, I coasted about 8 feet post initial build on that bike, and I would imagine I had a look on my face similar to the one Soren made when I snuck him a fingertip of maple syrup for the first time. My mind, like his was freaking blown. I never looked back after that. I worked for specialized in a small capacity last summer just as I'll be doing this summer as a wrench at their dealer event. I was drawn in by the concept of a shiny new hardtail, hanging up my full suspension xc bike days, via a deal from specialized inside sales rep and rat tail sporting all in all Latin bike pimp Juan Diaz. I rode it about a month before I wanted to trade it for a steel bike with a non spaceship geometry and a slightly more sensible fork. At that time walt was clocking a close to 7 month waiting period for a frame, and I wanted to try my hand with someone else's skillz. Enter this dude:



well maybe not him exactly, but in my, and the high holy priest of misery's opinion, he's the custom bike version. Opinionated, skilled, absent minded and in a class by himself: Paul Sadoff. I sold my s-works frame and forwarded said funds to rock lobster custom bikes. On groundhogs day I began talks with Paul. I was immediately excited about him building my new whip. He asked where I was from and told me "oh yeah, Redlands...I used to drive thru there on my way to do drugs...". I was pumped. Wait time was a major factor, as the 5.5 months I had to wait for my waltworks was enough to piss off the good humor man. I dunno how people handle richard sachs and people like him who have some insane 6 year waiting period. When he called to finalize the design work I would have to have a 30 minute "where the fuck do you get off..." conversation before I could possibly move onto seat tube angles. At any rate, Paul told me it was 3 or 4 months with an outside possibility of slightly more. He said he's never had a wait of more than 6 months, and is somewhat far from his record as far as amount of orders written. Also, he somewhat begrudgingly built a bar/stem for me that would match the bike, which is a request I have a feeling walt would have outrightly denied. With walt, he would just say "i dont do that." to my rediculous requests, and i got a great frame because of it. He wouldn't entertain my sophomoric first custom experience. With paul, he would say "uuuuuuuh...." to my far less rediculous requests, and with a small amount of cajoling, i got a little more customized experience, without painting myself into a corner with some wierd fad mod that would ruin the longevity of the frame.

I would say that the waiting is truly the hardest part, as stated by some no talent ass-clown, who shared the stage with Roy Orbison from time to time. The wait with waltworks was made worse by a "watched pot never boils" waiting list that he posts online. The wait with my rock lobster was made worse by the fact that he had my frame completed in 3.25 months, bar/stem completed in 3.75 (photo evidence of these items was the worst) and now at 4.25 months the frame and cockpit are floating in a purgatory sea of powdercoating/shipping. It's my fault for being such a cantankerous impatient asshole that the wait is making me sprout a tumor, but ive been riding my full squish doom carriage for the last 3 months exclusively, and while that bike is fun, I'm ready for something a little more nimble and, most importantly, made especially for me so I feel like the Lords unique and special snowflake, except, you know, on a bike.