Rock Lobster Expert Frame?? £50 BIN

[Tallpaul]

Not sure, but his claim of it being a Rock Lobster could be true, would the canti stop and Ritchey dropouts mean it's a Taiwan built Expert (pre-Merlin Cycles)?

Still if the paint job is as good as it looks then £50 for a nice steel frame and XTR headset seems like a good deal:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 648wt_1167

 

[jonrock]

I like the 'Very up to the minute.' comment
J

 

[Anthony]

I don't know what this is, but I'm sure it isn't a Merlin Rock Lobster. They didn't do the deal with Sadoff until way later than this 1"/canti frame was made (95 or earlier?) And they never used any steel tubing other than Fuji Stoutlite and Reynolds 853.

 

[Tallpaul]

Taken from MOMBAT....

(In 1994) The Rock Lobster Expert joins the family. Paul designed this frame and had it produced in Taiwan. You got the great Lobster design for the bargain basement price of $395. The frame featured Tange main tubes, Cro-Moly wishbone stays, gusseted down tube, top routed cables, suspension correct geometry, Ritchey dropouts, 71/73 geometry, 15/17/19" sizes and your choice of blue or green. The frames came with a 2 year warranty which was handled by Rock Lobster directly. Gekko Cycles, in Germany, bought Expert frames to resell in Germany.

(In 1999) There is a five year licensing agreement with a British company , The Merlin Cycles, Ltd. to sell the Expert model frame. So the Expert lives on in the jolly old U.K.

http://www.mombat.org/Rock_Lobster.htm

 

[Anthony]

That's it - Merlin started in late 98 with the Expert FS (Fuji Stoutlite) and the Expert AL for £199 and the Tig Team 853 for £299. I didn't know he had done the same kind of thing on his own account previously. Beats working I guess.

There used to be a Cyclery website with links to mtb sites, and at one point if you clicked on the Rock Lobster link you got a porno site. I assumed somebody had hacked into his site, but I reported it to the guy running the cyclery site and he said 'Hah! That sounds like Paul's sense of humour, he's probably taking a break from building'. I don't know if it was true of course, but I bet they don't have that on Mombat?

Anyway, seems as though this could be a retro Rock Lobster from Taiwan. I wonder if the seller has any evidence?

 

[greenstiles]

Can confirm also about Tange tubing. We had a demo one in blue back around then , light build , rode very sweet indeed, but the tubing was soft to dent.