treebound 

Hello,
I bought an older Marin Pine Mountain mtb over the weekend at a rummage sale up north. Bikepedia doesn't seem to go back far enough to cover this one. I'm just sharing what I got, and am looking for any comments or knowledge about the bike. I plan to keep it and will use it for roads and mup trails and some gravel and dirt trails. Not sure if I want to try running it on local single track stuff, but maybe.

Sticker shows it has triple butted cro-mo frame, 3x7 gearing, budget threadless front fork, and otherwise appears to be original except for the saddle and tires. I'm not sure if I'd want to upgrade the fork, will probably just try to find new rubber boots/covers for the fork legs. I'll probably give it a full clean and grease this winter along with new cables and brake pads.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

(Edited to delete old photobucket links)

clubman 

SO many companies made nice, offroad production bikes in the 90's, Marin's one of them. I only do rigid mtn bikes (not that you should follow suit.**

DorkDisk

Hello,

Pine Mountain was a high end bike, usually having full XT or LX/XT. Its unusual that yours has Acera-X, Alivio and such. I think the parts were swapped out with this model, which matches the parts you have perfectly:

https://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NzY4WDEwMjQ=/z/-VEAAOSwqu9U-4gy/$_86.JPG

The parts appear to be from a low-end Marin Hawk Hill. As you can see, they match perfectly: 1997 Marin Hawk Hill - BikePedia

97/98 was the year of the mango/orange/copper bikes so it may be that your frame is from that period also. At first I thought someone slapped a decal on a Hawk Hill but the dropouts are different.

Bikepedia says all PMs had double butted frames but they are not always correct. My money is on 97/98 frame with 97 hawk hill parts

Ronsonic 

My opinion on the fork (because, my opinion) is replace it with a decent rigid. You probably won't find a great suspension upgrade that fits and replacing elastomers and other parts still won't make it good.

I like the old mountain bikes better with a rigid fork than the mediocre suspension that showed up in the mid 90s.

treebound 

Good catch on the Hawk Hill model, at least I now have an age range for it, thank you.

As far as the front fork goes, I think I'll just ride it as is until it gets wonky and then in the mean time I'll keep an eye open for a replacement fork. I do like the color match between the fork and frame so for now it will work. Thanks, my mtb/commuter has a rigid fork which rudes nice so going full rigid on this Marin is a good option.

Edit: I just went out to the garage and noticed that the fork is more yellow like the Hawk Hill jpg link posted above, and the frame is more "Mango-ish" for lack of a better way to describe it. I hadn't noticed the color difference before, so yep I'll agree that there has probably been some parts swappage on his bike in the past. All good, I often swap parts too, and this is to be a rider and not some museum level restoration. I'll swap the pedals and take this to work with me next week for some lunchtime laps around the business park and will probably explore a few vacant lots and hills as well.

Backseatkid

Greetings,

I picked up the same frame from Craigslist and have been collecting parts for a rebuild, not for offroading as the bike gods intended but as a touring setup. I found that the 26" surly long haul trucker fork fits and mostly maintains the mtn geometry. I'm picking it up from the shop today and I will post some pictures. I'm in Portland where there are many used part stores so I was able to get my hands on a used but pretty functional xt drive train, but opted for thumb shifters (similar to "Tom's around the world bike").

An Ecuador trip will be the first big trip.

Happy riding!

DMC707

I've got a '95 Team edition slated for rebuild and have an unmolested Eldridge Grade as well ---- those both had seriously light Tange Prestige tubesets --- the Team was 22 lbs and the Eldridge 24

---- Re-building it as a 1x as a fun side project to hit the trails with on occasion

The Pine Mountain was situated either just below or just above the Eldridge, IIRC as far as price, and was always a darn good bike --- I am surprised to see they down specced it in later years with the Acera/Alivio stuff --- But looks like it still has a great frame

have fun with it OP !

thehammerdog

That is one nice old school frame. Groupon is midrange but if it works goody. Get new rigid fork new shock is costly....Enjoy. I just finished my same era Mongoose. Question. How did u post pictures? I cannot.

treebound 

Uploaded the photos to photobucket.com, then copied the IMG link and just pasted that link into the message field.
If you use the image button at the top of the typing window then you might have to copy the direct address, not sure.

I think we used to be able to just upload images to the servers here, but data management is easier (I think) for the site if photos are hosted elsewhere.

I may try uploading some to instagram and see if that works in a similar way.

Hope this helps some.

Mike J (aka: treebound)

RoadieDropper

Whoa, is that funny bike in the back ground the one that was on Philly CL awhile back?

DMC707

@RoadieDropper , its not - it has been with me since 1988, but it is one of the more common ones (relatively speaking) to pop up since Nishiki and Shogun as well made a fair number of them--- i have most of the parts onhand to restore this one , but i'm 45 yu now - dont know if i still have the flexibility in my back for it

Brokenspook

Looking for an early 1990's Marin Pine Mountain mountain bike for sale. I was the original owner. My was stolen and I miss the ride.. Let me know if you have one for sale. Thanks!

treebound 

Brokenspook,
What part of the world are you in? Welcome to the site here.

I'm still deciding what I'm going to do with the Marin, too busy with other stuff in life and just now have started to grt back to cycling stuff.

Also, sorry about the photobucket errors, but I'm not going to pay them $399/year so am in the process of downloading and moving images elsewhere. If I make any more progress on the bike I will post fresh images.

treebound 

Adding a new (non-photobucket, now using imgur) pic of the bike.

Brought it to work with me today and went for about a 12 mile lunchtime ride. I felt some movement in the cranks and when I checked closer it appears that the bottom bracket has some play in it.

Looking at the bikepedia link above the 1997 Hawk Hill model seems to use a BB-CT91 with a 116mm spindle. But when I tried to find specs for the Pine Mountain the 1996 model shows a BB-UN52 with a 113mm spindle. The 1993 model is the latest Pine Mountain model that shows 7speed but does not show any BB specs.

Is this one of those things that I need to remove the old one first before ordering new parts? I'm not used to working on these "newer" bottom brackets, if this was an older one I'd just pull it apart and clean it up and check the races and then reassemble and adjust it up.

93Marin

I have a 1993 Marin Pine Mountain for sale if interested.

bikemig 

You should start a thread showing your build for this trip. Sounds great.

2cam16

After two years, he's probably found a bike by now.

JASON HAUSE

I have an original garage kept in great condition.