Show us your (Marin) Boingers!

My Rifty has a Brother! Build thread is here:http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... 5#p2483435

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Ride comparison next week :)
 
It arrived as very nearly complete bike, courtesy of the legrandfromage. If I can get it all set up and tested in time, I'll be using it on the 5 Cumes MTB Marathon this Sunday, after which I'll post muddy photos and a report.
 
OK, I need to ask some advice from the Marin boinger owners brotherhood.

I have one tiny detail to get right before I can go out (hopefully tomorrow) for a first longish ride off road on my new Mount Vision. The 19 inch frame and 400 mm seat post is slightly too small for me (at 6'4" it's hard to get the frame size plus set post combo right first time). I need an extra 30 mm length on the seat post ... or I need to raise it 30 mm above the min insertion line, leaving 70 mm inside the frame. 90 mm of shim will still be in there, and the shim (aluminium, not plastic) reaches 15 mm below the very bottom of the lower weld of the top tube.

Minimum seat post insertion rules have always puzzled me. The standard value seems to be 10 mm, which seems suspiciously round a number to me, and I also reasoned that the min insertion line surely must be calculated by the manufacturer based on some quite extreme assumptions - about the rider's weight, and the design of the frame (distance between top tube and the top of the seat tube, etc.). On some bike forums I see people warning that your frame or post will snap if you go past the min insertion line by even a few mm (as if kalloy et al. would set the min insertion line right at the extreme edge of the design tolerance.

Anyway, back to the Marin. With the post 30 mm above the min mark, its end will still be inserted a little lower (a few mm) than the lower weld where the top tube joins the seat tube. Does this sound safe enough, as a temporary measure until I can sort a 430 mm seat post?

Any other super tall Marin FS riders out there like me? If so, I'd like to hear your work arounds.
 
Sticky problem, you must be huge! I'd not risk it, frankly. The post is one thing but I'd be worried about the frame with the effective pivot point just there. In theory the shim should spread the loading but I am not sure it's be making enough of a difference. If you are skinny and tall, perhaps. If you are buillt like Bernard Bresslaw I wouldn't. Sorry to not be much help.
 
Thanks for the reply. In any case, I risked it and went for a ride with the post 1 cm over-extended. And by Zeus, what an ride it was!

Uphill by road I was a bit slower as expected, so no surprises there.

But once I got onto the trails, I rode noticeably faster. On the downhils I smashed all my PRs of course. But what really surprised me is that on all, except one, uphill section I was also faster than I have ever been.

Was this down to better traction? Yes, or at least partially. I found myself able to clear tricky steep, loose switchbacks that I usually have trouble with. I also felt fresher coming out of the downhills, so perhaps the suspension also saved me some energy that would otherwise get eaten up by trail buzz and bigger impacts. Then there's also the potential adrenaline factor - riding a new bike and the extra fun factor on the downhills might also have led to a boost in adrenaline levels, making it a bit easier to put in a harder effort on the uphills.

That one section where I was slower is half green lane consisting of bedrock, and half gravel fire road. The green lane section I have only ever cleared in one try while riding rigid. Suspension and higher / wider bars just seems to make it hard get the required steering precision there.

As always, there are confounding variables which could have affected my times. Since June or before, we've had virtually zero rain and the trails were extremel dusty - then at the start of this week we've had torrential rain non sto for a few days, which seems to have dampened down the dust and changed the texture of some trails.

Time will tell, of course. But this is looking to be an excellent bike, and may even motivate the purchase of a modern 29er XC suspension bike in the spring. Maybe...
 
Seems you like it then :)

Stiffer spring will take out the sag and the drop in the standover height - beyond that - bigger frame? I think they came in an XL 21 inch.

I ran huge Continental Mountain Kings at around 50+ psi. That also adds to standover height as well as giving it a 27.5 style feel to the ride.
 
Do I like my Marin? I LOVE it.

The seat post height problem wil be solved next week when a super long, and sturdy post arrives from Wiggle.

The only other detail I need to experiment with is stem rise, and trying to stop the seat post from slipping down.
 

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