Marinoni Special Mountain Bike

[Guigui58]

Lovely finds. Is the chain stay chromed? I know he did that on the earlier Columbus tubed ones, along with the dropouts, for additional hardness. I've been curious about these for a while, would love to see a comparison between Eastern and Western Canadian geometry of the era.

@OldSkoolReTool'd Marinoni appears to have the chain stay chromed, but that's not the case for mine. Maybe it was an option at the time; my Marinoni came with a Deore LX groupset so it might have been a more ''budget friendly'' build.

I'll post some pictures when I'm done restoring it.

 

[Ingola]

@OldSkoolReTool'd Marinoni appears to have the chain stay chromed, but that's not the case for mine. Maybe it was an option at the time; my Marinoni came with a Deore LX groupset so it might have been a more ''budget friendly'' build.

I'll post some pictures when I'm done restoring it.

Here a link to mine https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/1990-marinoni-special-mtb.484181/#post-3627062

 

[Ingola]

@OldSkoolReTool'd Marinoni appears to have the chain stay chromed, but that's not the case for mine. Maybe it was an option at the time; my Marinoni came with a Deore LX groupset so it might have been a more ''budget friendly'' build.

I'll post some pictures when I'm done restoring it.

Mines also Columbus

 

[OldSkoolReTool'd]

Mine does have the chromed chainstay and dropouts. They had some minor surface rust starting when I got it but cleaned up nicely with metal polish.

 

[Guigui58]

As promised, here are some pictures of my freshly restored 1991 Marinoni Mountain S as well as a scan of the original purchase order provided by Marinoni! The bike still had the complete Deore LX groupset when I bought it, but I replaced most of it by Deore XT.

(The color described on the P.O. is "red with the fork + rear black, white decals").

 

[mudtread]

I hada Marinoni mtb back in 1988 in that very same color pattern. But the frame was a lugged Columbus OR. It came stock with a complete XT group, Tioga T-Bone 150mm stem and Ukai rims. I don't remember what tires, tough but I quickly replaced them w. Onza Porcupines. I replaced the rims with the -then- very sought after Bontrager re-rolled Mavic MA40 and a pair of Marin Rockstar tires after both Ukai were destroyed in the biggest -still to this day- crash I ever had. I still have hope that the bike is still "alive" and looking for it for a few years, now. I hope to find it and buy it back some day. I loved this bike so much, one of the best I ever had. It also had the toughest paintjob there is. Nothing could scratch it and it had a lot of details that we can also see on this example, here, like the chromed drive side chainstay and all 4 dropouts. This was my 2nd mtb, that I bought new in 1988 at the dawn of my 18th bd. It was replacing my 1st mtb, my venerable 1986 Norco Bigfoot. Thanks for the share!!!