Marin Pine Mountain puzzle

[Hattyfatner]

That should be Diatech can't multitask - bollocks

 

[Daddy Giraffe]

OK, decoding the frame number:
Made by Fairly
However the bad news is that yours is a Palisades from 1996 (the 76 part of the code).

It's all here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37430

However they are great bikes to ride, I have a Palisades from 1990 that I bought in 1991 - it's been my tourer for 25 years. I have ridden it on four continents.

‘96 Palisades were alu framed, and painted black. OP’s frame sounds a lot like my own ‘97 Pine.
Your Palisades must be the best travelled on earth by the sound of it

 

[Daddy Giraffe]

Re bikepedia, I’ve found it much like Wikipedia, or a weather forecast.. right too often to ignore, but wrong too often to rely on. In my experience, Marins were generally well represented in their respective market brochures. My own 97 Pine reflected the brochure spec exactly, while there are a couple of anomalies in the Bikepedia spec listing. The wheels are Mavic 221, not 217, rear hub is silent clutch not XT. I can’t see where you found LX on the ‘pedia listing but there’s no LX on the 97 Pine (plenty on the 98, mind..)
Now I look at it, the spec listed on ‘pedia corresponds exactly with the 97 IFT (apart from the frame, obviously)