Marin Bear Valley SE

Hi all , Ive lurked for a while and really enjoyed the depth of knowledge you all have and I need help, I have a Bear Valley se in a silvery champagne colour with rigid marin forks that I use as my all purpose around town bike and I would love to know what year it is , I guess early 90,s , I confess I also have 3 90`s saracens as well , in fact MY NAMES PHIL AND IM A RETROBIKE ADDICT,thanks in advance in case anyone can help!

Pictures of all your bikes please.

And welcome, you're about to become poorer and shorter of time.

Marin Identification

Benandemu came up with this coding system for frame numbers. There are a few problems with models that are close in the range, but it's not a bad starter:

" I have more answers...

Take my frame number

M74HAB182

The M is the factory.

M is Marvel, F is Fairly and T is Ti sports

7 is the model number. Exclude the Ti bikes and work down the list eg.

1 Team Issue
2 Team Marin
3 Pine Mountain
4 Eldridge grade
5 Bear Valley
6 Muirwoods
7 Palisades Trail
8 Bobcat Trail

4 is the year ending number. That would be 1994.

HA is month and date, but you will need the Enigma machine to decode these. Not really relevant either!

B is the size centre to centre.

A is 14 inches
B is 15.5 inches ( this makes it 17 centre to top)
C is 17 inches
D is 19 inches
E is 20 inches

182 are production numbers that are factory use only, and again require the Enigma machine.

So, from that you can calculate the year, model and place it was made.

Seems I have a 94 Palisades Trail frame and forks. The frames were all the same up to Eldridge and then they used Tange prestige or Superlight tubing."[/color]

Also look through the Marin catalogues in the Gallery & Archive section.

You can also look at the shimano parts list on this website if you know some of your shimano stuff is original bike kit: http://www.fa-technik.adfc.de/Herstelle ... pen90.html

Helped me date my Eldridge Grade.
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Picture and serial numbers.

Pictures normal do it straight away if it's not been tinkered with too much.

Many thanks for the replies so far really useful, I will try to take some photos and upload/attach them on Sunday when at home,I`ll post some of my saracens too, out of interest the shimano shifters and brakes are black deore LX and the front hub when I got the bike was exage pre parrallax I looked thru the archive catalogue but did nt spot my bike colour maybe I need to look again!!!

black lx was 93/94 i believe. 93 they were still matt grey were they not so i'd say its 94 on

Many thanks Gerrattrick, My wife has scrabbled about and texted me the following frame ref, C57CAC034
This would make it a 97 , 17" bear valley, any thoughts maybe 2 out of three aint bad,I agree about the black lx maybe they are not original parts?Its got afterburner written on the rear stays but rigid marin lite 1 1/8 threaded steerer ,when did they go to aheadset? I know the saracen hardtrax I bought new in 96 is aheadset.