As promised in the chat, here it comes.
A few weeks ago I got the Marin karma'd by a colleague. He had that bike since new. And it has been his work bike for many years. He was doing a few thousand kilometers a year, summer and winter, sun, rain and snow. He really cared about the bike, changed cassettes, chains, bbs... But lately he was more and more complaining about how hard it was to get new parts. He did not like the alivio grade cassettes, for example. I told him it was no big problem to by used stuff that was in ok nick, but for him it seems it was time for a new bike. And this is how I got his gold bike.
This is how it looked like. Poor thing



I had it sitting in my basement for a few weeks, trying to decide what to do with it. I was happily
building my FSR until suddenly it was finished. The weather was still bad and I had nothing to do so...

Why am I even doing this?

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My bikes:
1995 Specialized FSR,
1995 Ibis Szasbo,
1992 BikeTech Hikari, 1997 Klein Mantra
(pics),1992 Scott team racing
(pics), 1989 Kuwahara Pacer
(pics), 1992 Centurion Titan
(pics), 1985ish F.Moser jodler
(pics), 1992 Hercules Titanal
(pics), 1994 GT RTS-1
(pics),
1995 Klein Pulse,
Current projects: 1996 GT LTS Thermoplast,
1992 Klein Pinnacle,
1992 Marin Rocky RidgeEx bikes:
1992 Rocky Mountain Cirrus, Cannondale
SM2000, Specialized
Rock hopper comp,