MARIN NEWS & REVIEWS

The hard-wearing lads and lasses of the Marin-supported endurance team have a new member.

But he was six days off the pace in his first race!

However, George Gracie has been forgiven his tardiness immediately as he is the first born of Nick and Anna Gracie from London.

Baby George weighed in at a shade over NINE pounds making him a chunky little lad who will probably one day follow in Nick’s footsteps and take to a Marin Mount Vision. More »

Billy Whenman is a talented 16-year-old from Gravesend in Kent who we are proud to support as he makes his mark in the junior ranks and prepares for the big step into the senior world of MTB. His impressive track record is really making a mark in the sport.

I have been doing a mixture of mountain bike and road so far this season. My time in the saddle has been split between riding the Wilier Izoard on the road and my excellent Marin Mount Vision and Indian Fire Trail but mainly the Mount Vision on the MTB races. I have been busy competing at national, international and world cup level.

These are some of my best results:

1st round at Sherwood Pines – 4th
2nd round at Margam Park – 8th after a week’s training with the GB Olympic Development programme
3rd round at Drumlanrig in Scotland – 8th place
National championships Wales – 8th
4th round at Newham Plymouth – 6th
More »

The Team Aberdeen Asset Management people on their Marin Mount Visions are currently competing in the World Adventure Racing Championships in Sweden.

Nick Gracie sent us this report:

We are currently in second place overall in what looks like a very tough race. The guys are looking forward to some technical travelling over glaciers – should prove a great challenge for the Marins – and a 90 KM Atlantic ocean kayak! More »

TEAM Aberdeen Asset Management – the duo of Warren Bates and Nick Gracie – have scored another superb win in the Open 24. They rode their Marin Mount Visions with skill and strength and even managed a bit of caving! Nick’s report:

We had a great race in The Yorkshire Dales last weekend at the Open 24 against tough opposition from around 50 teams. More »

Trail-flattening full-suspension or hard as nails hardtail? We ride two Marins to find out what rules on the trail…

Words: Guy Kesteven

For the past decade it’s the Jon Whyte-designed full-suspension bikes that have forged Marin’s reputation, but before that its hardtails were equally popular on the UK’s trails. More »

THE TECH

For years Marin cut themselves a furrow in the single pivot field, but over the past few years they’ve sneaked in a few extra pivots. I say ’sneaked’ because at first from a distance they looked almost identical to the old bikes, but there’s no mistaking what’s going on with the new Quake. At its heart is the XLT Quad-Link system, as Marin like to call it, which is in reality a four pivot, floating swingarm design. It may look completely different to bikes like the Giant and Iron Horse, but actually it’s of the same ilk. You’ve got an ultra stiff swingarm with no sign of any pivots, which is then attached to the front triangle via two short linkages. It may all be in a different place, but the effect is the same, you end up with a floating pivot point. More »

Purpose-built all-day trail blaster blends pace with strength

MBUK Bike test – Winner

Unique among the bikes in this test, Marin’s Rocky Ridge has been designed from the ground up as an aggressive cross-country machine. There’s no race bike lineage or any freeride pretensions, just a frame and component package designed to hit XC trails hard and fast. More »

It’s no exaggeration to say that Marin is at least partly responsible for popularising full suspension bikes, certainly in the UK. It seems like most people have owned, or at least ridden, a Marin susser at some point. The 6in travel, white and red B17 flooded the DH race scene in the mid-nineties – it wasn’t intended as a DH bike, but it had the travel and it was very reasonably priced. Despite that, it’s in the XC/enduro arena that Marin has really built its reputation. More »