Marin Eldridge Grade - finally, after 20 years

Tonight I picked up a bike I almost bought twenty years ago - a 1995 Eldridge Grade. The photo below is from the 'for sale' ad.

Saddle and tyres aside it's completely original and the gold components are still gold (thought the bar ends have faded through use).

Tomorrow I'll give it a wash and a once over - and replace the slicks with a pair of Marin Quake tyres I picked up recently from retrobikeguy (cheers Lee!).

I know these mid-90s Marins aren't to everyone's taste but I've always like this particular model and I'm well chuffed with it.

That looks like a real nice Marin you've picked up their john and i've always been a fan of the older Marins and wise move changing those tyres over as the slicks just look weird to me ..

Hey MP,

Yeah, it cleaned up nicely (not that it was filthy).

Unfortunatley, when I put the knobblies on and pumped them up a few of the spoke nipples snapped - 3 on the front and 2 on the rear - so the wheels will have to go to the LBS for a tweak, maybe all the nipples replacing as a precaution.

Crikey that must have been surprising. If memory serves Marin used to use alloy nipples from the middle of the range and up in those days didn't they?

Oooh it's got those lovely Marin Lite brakes too. That's a nice bike, well done

Hi Jon ,

I wasn't expecting a reply like that mate so wheel repairs already " ouch " but yes for safety sake it's better to replace all the spoke nipples rather than leaving it to chance as it's just not worth the risk and i should imagine those spoke nipples are fatigued with age so to just replace the one's that are broke will more than likely cause more to break so that's a wise move you've decided on mate .

Re:

Firstly, nice to see another '95 marin back in action!

Some nice touches with forged stem and WI cranks. the rest is easy to maintain and replace, that LX56X stuff is quite common.

Also, if the wheels are the same as the ones on my '95 rocky ridge..ie..DEORE LX 565 laced to m400 with double butted spokes..I had to replace the whole of the rear and various front ones!

I wanted to true the front wheel and atleast 5 nipples were either seized solid or sheered off at nipple head, two of them sheered the spokes themselves! I found them to be alloy nipples and well powdered.I also noticed that two spokes were different to suggest that there had been issues previously, over the years.
For the front wheel i knew i had to slacken them all off to identify faulty and fused nipples, any suspects just got cut out with side cutting pliers and replaced from stock. so then i just re trued and tensioned the wheel and seems fine now!

The rear had a spoke completely missing so i knew this was going to be a similar scenario to the front. By the time i removed the 7th spoke..I knew it was a case of all out and start a fresh.

The front are 268mm right through and the rear are 266mm non drive and 264mm driveside. I used ACI spokes double butted steel with steel nipples.

Hey Stewie. Yup, the nipples are alloy. Reckon I'll getting brass replacements put in. And yeah, the brakes look lovely but I've always found them a ball-ache to set up properly (the tensioner is at the back of the canti). I do love the look of 'em though.

Hi MP. I had a similar thing happen with a '94 GT Avalanche - also on LX hubs and Mavic rims - but that was a spoke that snapped. :?

Hiya Marc, how you doing fella? Yep, M400 rims. I'll double check the rest of the spokes to see if there are any strays that shouldn't be there. To be honest, the wheels needed truing when I collected the bike. Now they need it even more so!

Does anyone know why inflating the tyre causes the nipples to explode? Is it because the rim varies in diameter from the hub in places (or something)?

Hi JT , in all honesty i've never had a spoke nipples or even a spoke just snap in over 20 years of cycling so i guess i've been pretty fortunate as i've had mainly 10 second hand bikes and only 5 new in that time lol .

Nice looking bike - I had a 95 Eldridge Grade and have a 1995 Team Marin too. I replaced all the spokes on the rear EG wheel too, the ones on the Team are not original so I can't comment on whether it was related to the model or year. Those brakes are a bit of a pain to set up but seem to work pretty well. Cheers, John.

Looks great