1999/2000 Marin East Peak / Shoreline Trail

[hawkhill97]

Ah that's interesting - my 2000 Mount Vision takes a 30.0mm seat post, which is a trickier size to find.

I don't miss having a dropper on mine too much, as the general set up is biased towards longer gently cross country riding, but I think I'd want one if it was set up with wider handlebars and a shorter stem as on your build.

Looking forward to hearing how it rides!

 

[thatmattwooding]

Out and about in the rain today. I fitted new bars with a 25mm rise which feel much better. They aren’t the right colour but the bike shop had what it had.



I fitted a new dropper lever which I doubt I’ll use much - the one that came with the post stuck straight up from the bar which just seemed a bit odd.

Gears seem to be working. I couldn’t get the bigger cassette and the hanger extender working right on my NRS. I must have been doing something wrong as it seems fine now although shifting into the smallest cogs on the cassette is a bit slow. I wonder if that’s because the jockey wheels are furthest from the cassette at that point.



Brakes feel good. I wondered if the old LX brifter would feel different to the new Magura but they feel pretty similar.

The brifter is … hmm. Not sure yet. It works as it should. But it’s weird. But it might because I’m not used to it.

Suspension is great! Really smooth and responsive. I’ve only got the Giant NRS to compare it with which is also good. But the NRS will sometimes overreact to something innocuous and blow through its travel and come back with a sort of slurping noise. I’m not sure if I’m comparing suspension designs or just shocks that are 22 years apart in age. Or my poor setup.

The chainring is definitely too small. But I can climb everything! Like a very slow Pogačar

Anyway, good so far. Got some mud on it.





Definitely needs some stickers.

 

[hawkhill97]

Looks great!

Be aware that changing chain ring size will affect pedal feedback to the suspension.

If the chain line is below the pivot, pedaling hard causes the shock to extend under chain tension, effectively firming the shock a smidge, which can be quite nice on steep climbs.

If it's above the pivot (as it would be with a big chain ring), chain tension when pedaling hard will compress the shock, which can make it feel a bit "mushy", especially if you like climbing out of the saddle in a high gear.

You're right that the slow shifting into the smallest sprocket is probably due to the fact you need to wind the b-tension screw in a long way to get the rear mech to clear the biggest sprocket. There's no solution to this that I'm aware of, expect to pair big cassettes with derailleurs designed to track them properly.

Hadn't noticed you were running brifters! Can imagine there must be a bit of a learning curve to them!

 

[thatmattwooding]

Gratuitous, stick assisted photo. The light was nice.

I’ve had three rides on it now. I’m no longer reaching for the thumb shifter. Still, the brifter is a bit odd.

I had the full 3x9/rapid rise/brifter setup on my Kona in 2006. I think it made some sense in that you pushed down to change up on both front and rear. My daughter (she has 2x10 on her bike) definitely finds the asymmetric setup of ‘normal’ shifters confusing.

In use, the brifter is fine. The brake has plenty of power. It feels quite normal. It is quite tricky to downshift and brake at the same time.

Not sure how long the brifter will stay. We will see.

 

[walter1775]

Question, where did you get your hands on that Reba? Jealous of how good it looks, but I've found hunting for quick release straight steerer forks is so difficult. Ebay is chock full of horrid condition forks listed for $200-$300. So many old fox F100s with serious stanchion wear.

 

[thatmattwooding]

In that photo, eBay. I think.

There was someone nearby selling one. I guess I was lucky.

On the way to building the above I built up a Giant NRS which I’d bought as a parts donor. One of the ‘donor’ parts was another reba fork. I think, if you are prepared to spend a little more, complete bikes can be a pretty efficient way of getting a whole pile of bits.

Beware the 2013 version of the fork, btw. The lockout wotsit is backwards and unless you have the remote connected (why, on a full sus?) it’ll default to locked out. I’ve bodged mine open with a very short bit of cable.

 

[thatmattwooding]

The price of forks and shocks just seems weird. I bought a Kona frame with a Fox Float R in it for, I think, £57. It’s pretty old but it seems fine.

There are broken shocks on eBay for more than £57!

For this reason, the Marin got a very nice new Fox shock when Wiggle was dying. It wasn’t much more than buying a second hand one.

(Just in case you aren’t in/near the UK, Wiggle was the big online bike retailer. It died when its parent organisation ran out of cash. Lots of stuff went for very good prices. I got a dropper post for £25 ish!)

 

[thatmattwooding]

STICKERS!!!

And other things.

I think I have the bike feeling pretty good now. It takes a few rides (it takes me a few rides, anyway) to figure out exactly what the 'not quite right' feelings from a bike are. In this case, the front end was too low. I'd already swapped the bars and that helped but it wasn't quite enough. So I swapped the forks between this bike and my Giant NRS. The NRS had loads of spare steerer and this one had none. Swapping them over has got them both about right.

When the fork was on the Giant I had the lockout lever connected. I never used it so I got rid of it. Then I found that the fork defaults to the locked out setting without the remote. The fix is quite simple - about an inch of shifter cable holding the lockout dial in the open position:



This is the only bit of practical advice in this post. The rest is just fluff.

Once I'd sorted the low front out I started to feel like I was following along behind the bike. Bringing the seat post up and the saddle forward a bit sorted that. I had to re-run the dropper lever so that bit of cabling is now in the same lurid shade of green as most of the other cables.

I've got used to the brifters. They are fine. Good, even. People on youtube should stop chuckling and try them out for a bit. I'll grant that they are quite ugly. Except for the later XTR versions which look great.

My wife has a cutting machine. It's a Silhouette Cameo 2. Quite old but it seems to do the job. I found a Marin SVG file on the information super-highway and used Inkscape (free and really, really good) to make a .PNG which the Silhouette software could turn into a cutting file (Silhouette lock their software down as they want you to buy extra features but taking this approach gets round all that). My wife's box of vinyl bits and bobs had the right shade of green and the cutting was really easy. Once you've cut you 'weed' (taking away the vinyl you don't want) and then you use 'transfer tape' (a sticky, clear plastic sheet) to pick up the cut out shapes and stick them to the bike. This is easier to watch on YouTube than it is to explain in words.

Marin head badges are pretty inconsistent. There's some with five points and some with 6 and loads of other varieties with bears and no points at all. I made up a version with the M from the brand name in the middle. I'm quite pleased with it.

This is what it all looks like:

The final touch is a couple of stickers from 2nd Life Bikes which finish things off nicely.

Now it's 'finished', how does it ride? Nicely. It's definitely heavier than my Giant NRS, less of a happy climber. But it feels nice. The suspension feels smooth and predictable. For where I ride - muddy bridleways in Southern England - I can't see how it could be improved.

Waffle over.

 

[hawkhill97]

Nice work with the vinyl cutter, that looks brilliant!