2000 Marin Bear Valley - another EatMyDirt team bike?

MiniNinjaRob

Retrobike Rider
Gold Trader
Feedback
View
Following on from the Kona Hahanna which was very gatefully received by my friend, I was looking out for a circa 20" frame to do another bike for him - his wife took the Kona as it was a bit small for him.
Been searching for a while for a bargain as I wanted to make it as cheap as possible and I ended up getting this for FREE!



Although its a little battle scarred there isn't much chainsuck and there are no dents or bad scratches. I cannot stand dents in bikes so probably wouldn't have taken it on with one. It seems fairly light for a mid range steel frame too.

The frame has some nice shapes to the tubes, tear drop shapes for the top and down tubes and the lovely chunky stays too.

It's going to be resprayed as soon as I find some forks for it. It has a 150mm headtube so I am thinking I need 35mm for a headset and 40mm for a stem, so I need some rigid forks with a steerer of at least 230mm. I like P2's but any forks are hard to find with such a long steerer..... can anyone help me out??

The catalogue says a seatpost of 27.0mm is needed but I couldn't seem to fit that size in, I will try to clean it out a bit to help fitment, also the clamp section might be slightly squeezed in so that might not be helping.

All the threads seem to be fine, although a little rusty. BB shell looks ok and thankfully headset cups are still in which have protected the headtube.
 
The catalogue picture makes the bike look a bit cheap, like most late 90's, early 00's bikes do to my eyes.

I'm sure I can do better.... ;-)

 
Have some rst mozo pros that might be long enough? Came off a bike so no idea how good condition they are but they go up and down OK. Let me know if interested and we can haggle. Also have a kalin 26.8 seat post if you wanted to try a size down. Having mainly 20" bikes I know finding p2s for reasonable price with 230mm steerer is hard and pricey!

By this stage Marin had seemed to lose its way a bit so not a lot of love for these at the turn of the century. Like you say catalogue pics don't help!
 
J e James sell marzocchi steerer tubes uncut, steel only but with this frame and bombers what difference does that really make.
 
they're really large diameter for cro-mo tubes - makes it look like a cheapie alu-BSO - you can DEFINITELY do better! :)
 
ovlov440":2ncl0ze0 said:
they're really large diameter for cro-mo tubes - makes it look like a cheapie alu-BSO - you can DEFINITELY do better! :)

No they're not - don't know how you figure that out. Really nice tear drop shaped, well made and reasonably light too. I'll weigh it soon.

Anyway, I got it for FREE. can't get ANY better than that!

I don't think the colour does it any justice. A full respray will be done in light colour. I hate yellow!
 
MiniNinjaRob":1dyt4uhc said:
...A full respray will be done in light colour....

How about in white again?!? I think I recall a conversation where you said how much you liked the first Project EatMyDirt bike in white, despite protestations beforehand!!
 
ScottishPower":1w5m2ych said:
MiniNinjaRob":1w5m2ych said:
...A full respray will be done in light colour....

How about in white again?!? I think I recall a conversation where you said how much you liked the first Project EatMyDirt bike in white, despite protestations beforehand!!

:facepalm:

I am thinking that white will be best to be honest.

Just got an email back from UKBikeStore and they have replacement steerers available for Z1 forks which should be long enough. Just need to check if the one on the forks I have is replaceable.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top