My next Marin project.... any advice?

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I've seen quite a few now - but everything is too far away without postage.

I'm either gonna have to keep looking - within 30 miles of Brighton ideally.... or wait until I'm making a longer journey!

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Not what I was going to get! '97 pine Mountain. Means I still sneak into the > 97 section of the forum

Turned up locally... young lad who fixes up bikes to sell had it for a good price. I was after rigid... and by 97 most had heavy oil filled suspension. Get v-brakes too - I'm not the biggest fan on canti's.

No dents or dings. Has quite a few original bits: white industry cranks, XT front mech, Diatech headset, VP-103 pedals... plus came with the original bars & stem separately.

Paint chips are annoying - if I repainted it would be difficult to get these later Marin transfers.

I'll be on the lookout for a few bits now. Thinking of all XT as per the catalogue - or maybe I could go for the Grip-shift from the '96. Anyone had experience of these? I've only ever tried cheap versions on my wife's hybrid.

I might have an almost complete '93 Palisades Trail for sale soon, I used it as a donor, happy to split.
No dents but some rust & marks, top tube stickers are not great.

It appears I cant PM as i'm a newb?

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Gripshift: I like the SRT-600 a lot. As long as your grips are not too long, they offer convenient, crisp shifting. The SRT-800 are nominally better but I'm not sure they are as hard wearing. SRT-300 work well on the right shifter but the left one needs to be twisted further than the SRT-600s to shift the front mech, and it's just a bit too far to be quick and easy. In short: avoid. SRT-400: just got some of these on the Palisades I got a couple of weeks ago, so not much experience with them yet. Initial impressions: OK but not as good as the SRT-600s.

Someone else might be able to say more about the SRT-800s. Obviously, with something that's 20+ years old, how they've been used is likely to affect performance just as much as original quality. Knackered is knackered, no matter how high end originally.

Ordered some SRT-600. New old stock.

Been told to look out for Sachs Wavey. Found some on a site in the US... but I'll just keep my eyes open.

Bit an experiment really. I have Deore LX rapid fire on my Eldridge Grade. Want to try something a bit different!