One of the bikes up for grabs in Easton Cycling’s Dream Bike Charity Raffle was an aluminum race bike built by Santa Cruz local Paul Sadoff of Rock Lobster Cycles. Paul’s frames have been held in the highest regard for over twenty years and have been the choice of Olympic and World Championship cyclocross and mountain bike riders all around the world.

The Santa Cruz crew is very tight-knit. Brian Vernor is another California local and a celebrated bike photographer whose work is featured in the 2014 Cycle EXIF Calendar. He visited Rock Lobster yesterday and captured one of Paul’s sponsored MTB champs, Aaron Bradford, and his particularly special training bike, built with extremely rare tubes by Easton — another Californian.

Aaron’s main focus is single speed and enduro MTB and cyclocross, and has placed in numerous national and state championships. Brian was quick to point out that this was not a track bike — rather, it is a specific build to help Aaron build cadence and focus bike control — but it is unique: the tubes were custom butted by Easton Cycling when they were still drawing tubes in California.

Brian fills us in: “The diamond tubes were made by Easton in the US and Paul got only two sets of them from Kinesis when they were closing. They liquidated their stock and Paul got a bunch of tubes at a bulk rate. He said there was a lot of stuff he’d never use but that those coupla gems were worth it. Not sure if those tubes had a name at the time.” An intriguing story, but a magnificent Rock Lobster.

Very special thanks to Paul Sadoff, Aaron Bradford and Brian Vernor for the awesome shots and story. Head to Brian’s flickr for more.















