beng1

A 25th anniversary thread for my Marin bike I bought 25 years ago. It is a large-size steel-framed job which I chose back then because it was well-proven technology. This is my regular ride for any type of riding, road or off. In the 90s I joined NORBA so I could ride it in local events they sanctioned, I ran it is road-races, time-trials too, as well as for daily commuting and exploring. For it's birthday this year I put a chrome-moly stem and handlebars on it, replacing the original alloy items I was waiting to fail after being under my 200+ pounds the last quarter-century. Last fall it got new tires. And in the past I have replaced the forks and cranks and other parts due to various problems, preferences. This is the only new bike I have ever bought in my life, and it will be the last. The statistics for average lifespan make another 25 years improbable, but I will be riding it for as long as I got left.

Kapusta

Being a steel frame, unless it rusts you may well get another 25 years out of it.

seat_boy

I'm a bit amazed you can still deal with this saddle to bar drop!

3speed

^ Seriously! Oof. Makes my neck tense up just thinking about it.

Really cool that you still have that bike after 25yrs!

vespasianus

That is great and honestly, that bike to me is a perfect gravel bike. Most people put drop bars or wide modern bars on these old MTB's and think it improves things. In reality, the wide modern bars make them too stable and the drop bars give a twitchy and imbalanced ride.

Keeping the narrow bars with bar ends give you the multiple hand positions for all day comfort and the narrow bars also give you the responsiveness people riding gravel are looking for.

beng1

Thanks guys. I don't think the saddle to bar drop on this bike is any different than one of my road-bikes. When I go for a good ride I look at the ground on long straights, steering by watching the edge of the pavement or lines on the pavement etc.. Also will turn my head side to side now and then instead of keeping it in one position. Maybe it would be a little better off-road with the bars higher, but this seems to work for all-round riding, it lets me get out of the airstream on the straights and go faster. I know a guy who is in his mid-eighties who still rides a lot, so maybe I will be lucky enough to do it too.

beng1

At NORBA event in 1997;

beng1

Here it is this spring with new(used) steel stem and handlebars a friend gave me;

DMC707

Love the BITD action pic !

While it would not be unheard of to have to change cranksets in 25 years - did your bike originally come with the White Industries cranks some of the Marins were using back then?

If so, crankset problems were likely not uncommon. I have 2 of these bikes from 1995 - a Team Issue and a Eldridge Grade. Both came with the White cranks and both squeak like crazy. I recall getting a left crankarm for the Team within a few months as it distorted enough that it would never stay tight

beng1

Yea, the White cranks were junk. White sold one set that was really good quality, but the set that was put on Marin bikes like this was scrap. The cranks on the bike now are just some I got at a local bike shop about a dozen years ago. I had the CODA "magic" cranks on the bike for a while but one of the arms cracked one day when landing a jump on pavement. The Manitou front forks were scrap too, they would flex when pedaling standing up enough for the front tire knobs to rub, so i gave them away and had some Marzocchi's on it for a while. At one point I swapped a lot of the parts onto a 1997 Heckler I had but it was stolen, so I just put a fork of an old Raleigh on the Marin and kept riding it. The parts that are left which are original today are the frame, seat-post, wheels, derailleurs, shifters, and maybe the bottom-bracket. I have the original rear cassette, but right now I am trying a XTR cyclo-cross rear cassette I bought back in the 90s and had laying around. I think the 8-speed mountainbikes of the 1990s were the best ever made, before that they were a little lacking in some areas, after the 90s they added a bunch of crap that was more for marketing I thought than performance.

seat_boy

Maybe if you decide it's a keeper, you can get some grips for it

DMC707

The OP has a personal theory that grips are not necessry for his needs per another thread in the C&V forum --- we all have our preferences i guess ---

beng1

Been riding on/off road without grips for the last 50 years, starting with this bike;

beng1

Went for a ride on some trails yesterday. It was a really windy day so I thought better to ride in the woods than on the road. But I ended up on the road a lot anyway as it was about ten miles ride to the trail. There were a LOT of people hiking on the trail too and it kept interrupting the ride. It is a very steep and technical trail with washouts, roots, rocks and trees. Last year I worked up to climbing the trail without stopping and wanted to see if I could come close to doing the same this year, but I think because I got a late start I did not beat the general public to the trail as usual and did not have it mostly all to myself as usual. My fault. So I elected not to ride back down the trail the same way as if I came across hikers in the steepest part of the descent, it might cause me to fall as it requires me to hang back behind the seat with my butt just about touching the rear tire, and skillful use of both brakes to keep the bike at a safe speed without either wheel skidding. So I said to heck with it and rode out of the woods at the top, after a good pee and drink of water, and into a university campus and on to public roads. I got disoriented and made a wrong turn and ended up riding quite a ways uphill until I came across a major east-west interstate highway that let me know I was heading south and not north, so I turned around and had a long ride home into a stiff headwind of 30mph give or take. I was out of water and I was getting beat. Today is my day off riding though, and I am already missing it, and by tomorrow morning I will be jumping at the chance to get back on a bike and ride again.

I flipped the stem of my Marin upside-down to lower the bars a little more, and it worked well on steep climbs, and it also worked very well on the ride home letting me get down out of the wind;