Marin Mount Vision Tour of Dartmoor

[hawkhill97]

A few years ago now, I built up a year 2000 Marin Mount Vision - build thread here:

2000 Marin Mount Vision Build

A while ago I had a '97 Shoreline Trail, but stupidly sold it as I was finding the lack of disc brake mounts a bit limiting - always regretted it! So when I saw this going for a song locally, I jumped for it: It's not in particularly great condition - there's some ferocious cable rub on...

www.retrobike.co.uk

It's a lovely bike to ride, and to me, is aesthetically one of the most iconic of the late 90s cross-country full suspension designs.

However, in terms of ride character, it's still very much of it's era.

It feel best to me built up as in the photo above, with a long-ish (100mm in this case) stem and narrow bars (580s here - with obligatory bar ends). Having played around with different fork lengths, the 85mm travel (465mm axle to crown) fork pictured is as long as I'm happy to go before the (already quite high by design) BB is raised to the point where it starts to detract from the overall handling.

I have tried out an alternative, much more modern set-up (see thread above - 130mm fork / 60mm stem / 780mm bars), and while it was admittedly much more capable on "proper" MTB trails set up like this, the high BB, lack of a dropper post, and to a lesser extent the steep-ish head angle, always made me feel like it was trying to be something it's not.

A lot of my riding these days is on the sort of trails where the Marin feels rather out of it's depth, and consequently it hasn't been ridden as much as it deserves, save for the odd cross-country loop after work.

I've been wanting to do an overnight camp on Dartmoor for a while now, and thought that the Marin would be absolutely perfect for the terrain around the Okehampton area, which tends to be a mix of 4x4 access tracks, long hard climbs, and fast but not particularly technical descents.

Planning a trip like this is always half the fun, so after a few evenings plotting out routes on an OS map, I set off early yesterday morning with the trust Marin in tow.

 

[hawkhill97]

The ride started with a brief tarmac climb up from the military camp at the border of the moor, but this quickly gave way to a stoned track. The photo below is pretty representative of a lot of the route. Too rough to easily carry any speed on a fully rigid bike, and rough enough that a full sus is much more comfortable for a long day of seated cross-country pedalling.

I'm running a fairly modern air shock on the Marin, which has a lock-out switch. For most "proper" MTB trails, this isn't a feature I particularly value, but on this ride the ability to lock out the rear shock was really appreciated.

Although the rear suspension action on the bike is excellent considering it's age, and it is extremely efficient for seated pedalling over this sort of terrain, there is still noticeable pedal bob, and since I'd planned what for me was going to be a long day in the saddle, it's great to have the option of locking this out when it's not required. The fork I leave unlocked 100% of the time (as I do on every MTB I've ever owned - I'm not really one for climbing out of the saddle much, and don't really feel like you gain much efficiency on anything off-road).



The route I'd planned included ten tors along the way, and the first one, Rowtor, was reached a short way into the route.

 

[hawkhill97]

Next up on the list was Yes Tor, the highest tor on Dartmoor. The climb up to this wasn't as bad as I'd feared, but still a bit of a leg burner! The access track gave way to an unsurfaced grassy track strewn with massive granite boulders. This required a lot of good line choice, and short bursts of high power on the pedals to make it up the steeper sections, followed by recovering on the shallower gradients and looking ahead to plan a viable line. I was pretty chuffed to make it right to the top without putting a foot down!



Next point en route was High Willhays, the highest point on Dartmoor. This isn't much higher than Yes Tor, and was reached by a nice traverse along a grassy ridge, with a few almost trialsy sections of big granite boulder features along the way.



From here it would have been possible to drop down and re-join my plotted route, but the climb up looked like it would be excellent fun to ride back down.... and it was!

 

[hawkhill97]

The route featured a lot of long sustained climbs and descents. The majority of the descents were on 4x4 access tracks, in varying states of repair. Much of the time they feature long sections of deep, loose, fist sized, chunks of granite - if you're confident enough to hit these at speed, feeling them shift underneath you as you drift around a corner at speed feels pretty awesome

Most of the tracks are quite wide, and don't feature sharp corners (certainly no berms in site!), or anything more technical than rain bars to hop and large granite boulders to either avoid or use to get a bit of air.

The Marin is super fun on this sort of terrain - the suspension is good enough that you can really get some speed up, the terrain isn't so technical that the narrow bars and lack of dropper post feel limiting, and the arse-up-head-down riding posture feels pretty exhilarating. A big burly modern MTB would make the same trails boring, and a gravel bike wouldn't be able to carry anything like the same speed. It's nice to feel like you're on the right/best bike for the terrain you're riding, and the Marin was spot on here.

Didn't get any pictures en route as was having too much fun! But here's a stream crossing from the bottom of one of the stretches.

 

[hawkhill97]

From here I made my way further South into the moor, and continued until the end of the access tracks reached the ominously named Hangingstone Hill.



From here I headed cross country to Wilder Tor. The OS map had the route marked with a dashed black line, but while this had previously represented surfaced tracks up until this point, these came to an abrupt end, so I continued across the moor, leaving any sort of surfaced track behind.

Wilder Tor made an excellent spot for lunch. I'm not very good at travelling light, so had brought along all sorts of goodies, including a nice baked potato, flapjack, and a thermos of tea

 

[hawkhill97]

From here I'd planned to continue to Little Hound Tor... but was finding the track I was following was becoming progressively less distinct, with lots of tell-tale signs of cotton grass on either side (a sure sign of boggy ground on Dartmoor).



After a short while, I was reduced to pushing the bike, and not long after that I gave up and returned to Wilder Tor to re-route!

 

[hawkhill97]

Fortunately the map presented plenty of viable options, so I set off for Steeperton Tor. This one more than lives up to the name, and most of the approaches are so steep there's no chance of cycling up them. However, the approach from the South is relatively benign... relatively being the operative word!

The Marin is a joy to climb on - the riding position is very road bike esque, allowing good recruitment of all the right leg muscles (in a way that most modern MTBs simply don't), and the old school cross-country geometry really shines on steeper climbs. This was a proper grunting effort of a climb, with plenty of max effort sections to clear steep pitches, after which I could barely keep the pedals turning. The satisfaction on getting to the top was considerable.

 

[hawkhill97]

After a nice cuppa on the tor, I was treated to what was easily the best descent of the day. It started as I'd become accustomed, with a flat out bomb down a nice rocky track.



But while the gradients on the descents thus far had stayed fairly mellow, this one kept on getting steeper and steeper... and rougher and rougher. The turns became tighter and the surface of the track disintegrated all together, becoming a brilliant mess of collapsed banks, boulders, ruts and loose stone. It probably only lasted a couple of minutes, but this was up there with the best bits of trail centre singletrack I've ridden, and all the better for being wild and natural.

The climb back up was similar in character. By this time I was getting pretty tired - on fresh legs it would have been a great challenge to attempt to ride up it cleanly (it would require a lot of recce work to decide on line choices, and some trialsy moves), but I settled for pushing the steepest and toughest sections.

 

[hawkhill97]

Uh-oh!



All those super steep max-effort sections proved a bit much for my chain! I think I must have inadvertently picked up a batch of fake Shimano chains a few years ago, as this is the third one I've had break on me in quick succession, after decades of never breaking a chain.

Sometimes not being good at packing light can be a good thing though - a few minutes with a chain tool and a fresh quick link and we were back on the trails again.

 

[hawkhill97]

The climb levelled out onto a lovely section of grassy ridge, with lovely views to the North. Having been forced to re-route by the bog earlier I wasn't quite going to bag my ten tors, but quickly got to my fifth, Oke Tor on the spine of the ridge.



The relatively flat spine of the ridge was a nice break from what had felt like near constant climbs, and I made good pace along the natural track, reaching Winter Tor a short while later.