“Around 1999, I started looking for a suspension platform with better performance than the single pivot. While the Virtual Pivot Point (VPP) platform is popularly attributed to Santa Cruz, it was Rob’s curiosity and resourcefulness that led to Santa Cruz being the home of the VPP. Rob loves to push the performance of suspension design and Santa Cruz continued with almost annual increases in suspension travel as Rob kept ahead of the curve. The Tazmon did just that and was followed a year later by the Heckler, a 4in-travel design that boosted sales three-fold, no doubt helped by its pivotal role in the groundbreaking freeride ﬁlm Kranked. What was it like in the early days? “When the bike company started, I was screening T-shirts for Santa Cruz Skateboards,” he says wryly.Īlthough completely separate from the Santa Cruz skate brand except in name, dealers wrongly saw the company as jumping on the mountain bike bandwagon. There’s history here: the same premises once housed a ﬁsh cannery before becoming Keith Bontrager’s workshop, and Santa Cruz still shares this space with a commercial bakery. “I’ve done everything in this place, from sweeping the ﬂoors to looking after trade shows,” he grins, now glancing around the hotchpotch of tin-clad buildings that house his company. It’s the versatile theme that’s key at Santa Cruz, and a reﬂection of Rob’s approach to life. Even then the resulting Chameleon was designed to be a little different, with the ability to slot in a (then) long-travel fork or be converted to a singlespeed. Indeed, despite the hills surrounding Santa Cruz being littered with fast singletrack that can be ridden on a cyclo-cross bike, a hardtail didn’t come to fruition until 1996. Santa Cruz are drenched in Rob’s history, as this wall of Roskopp skateboards testifies Santa cruz is drenched in rob’s history, as this wall of roskopp skateboards testifies: santa cruz is drenched in rob’s history, as this wall of roskopp skateboards testifies Dan Milner “Who wants to turn out junk? We make bikes we want to ride!” Those bikes, it turns out, are often full-sussers. “There’s been a change in the industry, especially for the image of high-end models as that’s where you’re going to make your money,” he explains.

I ask Rob about the perceived upmarket identity of Santa Cruz. I look at the exquisite Blur LT carbon I’m straddling – clearly things have changed. The bike industry was about 10 years behind in style,” he continues. “You could consider the skate industry as at the cutting edge back then in terms of marketing, hipness and cool factor. I got Rich into it too, and one day he said, ‘What do you think about doing Santa Cruz bikes?’ I did some research, looked at the market and full-suspension made the most sense. I got back into riding around 1987 on a GT Karakoram, but 1989 was when I started riding a lot. “It was Rich’s idea to start a bike company. But what prompted Rob to get into the bike biz? It was called the Tazmon, a 3in-travel single-pivot design whose main girder-like swingarm looked decidedly Heath Robinson. When Santa Cruz Bicycles launched in 1994, they did so not with a hardtail, as was the norm, but with an early full-suspension bike. I’m kind of over it now.” Still, Rob’s immersion in skating did supply him with the ability to keep his ﬁnger on the pulse of emerging trends. When I ask if he still skates, Rob replies, “Only with my son, just a little. Within two years, Santa Cruz Skateboards – headed by Rich Novak – was producing a Roskopp pro-model deck, versions of which are suspended on the wall at one end of Santa Cruz’s bike warehouse. Lured by the Californian attitude (and sunshine), Rob took the 2,400-mile bus ride from Ohio to Santa Cruz at the age of 19 with just $800 in his pocket. However, there’s a glint in his eye that suggests he always has something up his sleeve. So what’s his secret? Rob is thickset, which, along with his shaved head, gives him the look of an East End bouncer rather than the boss of an innovative bike company.

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