'93 Marin Team / '94 Parkpre Pro825

Picked up this Marin last night, needs some repair work. Thanks Colin

I was comparing it to the Parkpre and surprised at some of the differences in geometry. Both were sold as 19" Frames.

The Parkpre Pro825 was the top of the range steel frame "Tange Ultimate Superlight", while the Marin was one below the top "Tange Ultimate Ultrastrong" (i believe the Team Issue was Superlight).

The finish is identical, although Parkpre marketed as "Ti Plated". Incidently, is there anyway of recreating this finish as both these frames need a complete strip. I believe Reki was looking into this.



Quite a stretched out ride. Yes the Marin really is that much longer!






Ultrastrong, although i can't see this external ribbing it's supposed to have.



Superlight



Overall, the Marin is in better condition than the Parkpre, but how on earth did this hole get there? I htink there must have been water sat there for a while to do that.

That's very interesting, especially that the finishes are so similar. I don't suppose they were made in the same factory, were they? Any similarities in the serial numbers?

The Marin is huge, but Marin sizes are taken c-c I believe, so that size 19 would be a 21 to many makers, and presumably it has a top tube to suit.

My understanding is that all Tange Ultimate is basically the same quality level, but Superlight was just a thinner gauge than Ultralight and Ultrastrong was a further amount thicker than Ultralight. There was also a road Superlight that was really thin, but obviously not recommended by Tange for mtb use (although that didn't stop some makers using it for team frames, I suspect).

They are both made in Taiwan.

Marin M23BAC004

Parkpre F3094954

The marin actually has a shorter CT than the Parkpre despite having the huge toptube length, and the CC are virtually identical. Both were sold as 19" frames (that's according to the sticker on the Parkpre and the serial number has the size on the Marin).

Top tube is a bigger diameter on the Parkpre too. Seatube is ovalised by the bb on the Parkpre, Marin is not. Marin has very different chainstays and dropouts to the Parkpre.

I don't believe one was rebranded and sold as the other at all, i was just surprised at the very different geometries considering they were both top end steel frames from basically the same year.

Any clues as to how the finish is achieved?

The Parkpre frame was built by Fairly Bike Co. in Taiwan, hence the F at the start of the serial number. Fairly made frames for many different brands.

Easy_Rider":1z3ul2p6 said:

Any clues as to how the finish is achieved?

Click to expand...

The finish on the Parkpre a bright plated Ti with a lacquer over it. The lacquer gives it the brushed finish effect. If you remove the lacquer with paint stripper you will have a shiny smooth surface very similar to a chrome finish

Yeah i noticed that when i stripped the SS to paint. I wanted to try and recreate the finish though

It can't be that difficult, so far i've seen this Marin & Parkpre and Crud's '97 Claud Butler Cape Wrath that have exactly the same finish.

Well, just got to figure out the neatest repair job for this Marin first.

I'm surprised by the Marin's tubes. The Ultrastrong top and down tubes were both ribbed, so if yours are plain it suggests they're something else.

I think I've said this to you before, but as far as I'm aware, US consumer law only requires the sticker to be true of the tube it is on, here the seat tube. Most Ultrastrong seat tubes were bulge-butted at the base, but again yours is plain. There was a single-butted option within the Ultrastrong seat tubes though, and I don't believe Marin would break US consumer law, so I think you can rely on it that the seat tube is Ultrastrong, although why they fitted the less strong of the two available options is a bit of a mystery. And the rest of the tubeset must be a 'custom mix'.

I have a 94 Explosif with the same seat tube sticker, a bulge-butted seat tube, a ribbed downtube and a plain top tube. But in that case, Kona clearly stated that the top tube was an Ultimate Ultralight, and in fact the stays are Tange Concept. So in that case all is clear, but makers don't by law have to give that amount of information.

Without wishing to offend anyone, I do think this shows that the ParkPre frame is of a higher specification. Brands like Marin tended to make savings and trade on their name, but less well known makers tended to give you the full tubeset as stated.

edit:
Having said that, the 1993 Marin catalogue explains in one way, confuses in another. It says the top, down and seat tubes were all made of Ultimate Superlight, so the same as the 825 and that fits perfectly with their appearance. But in that case, why the Ultrastrong sticker? The plot thickens......

I spotted that in the catalogue too, but i thought it was just the top of the range team issue that was superlight.

have a look at these two, you can see the the Team Marin has the darker sticker, and i assume ultrastrong, unlike the Team Issue.

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... 0375832906

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... 0376279758

I seem to find these odd stickered frames don't I :roll:

Funny though how a Pro825 frame won't fetch anywhere near the same price as similar superlight frames

If it helps explain anything, the seat and top tube of the Marin are much smaller diameter (seatpost is also 26.0mm v 27.0mm on Parkpre). Downtubes are similar though.

So the sacrilegious suggestion is that the 1993 Marin catalogue is *wrong*? Eek. Still, I find that more believable than that they would put an Ultimate sticker on a tube that wasn’t Ultimate. But on the other hand I can’t explain why the Marin takes such a small seat post, as that implies a much thicker gauge of seat tube.

The available top tubes in Ultimate were 28.6, 30.0 and 31.8, seat tubes 28.6 and 31.8. It sounds as though the Marin has 28.6 top and seat tubes and the ParkPre has either 30.0 or 31.8 top and 28.6 seat? But if the Marin’s top tube isn’t Superlight, it could be thicker gauge than the ParkPre to compensate for the smaller diameter. One way to deduce what kind of tubes the Marin might be made of is to compare the respective frame weights. If you let me have those and the top tube etc c-c lengths, my extremely sketchy spreadsheet will tell us something, don’t know what.

Those bikes in the ads are frighteningly clean!

I thought it was just me reading the german wrong :shock: maybe they are more of a guide...

I can't weight the marin frame yet as the titec cup n ball BB is well and truelly stuck i'm thinking of just dissolving the aluminium cups now.

But tube sizes

Parkpre
Down 31.8
Top 31.8
Seat 28.6 Post size 27.0

Marin
Down 33.0
Top 28.6
Seat 28.6 Post size 26.0

I'll get the lengths tomorrow

This is proper geeky stuff, love it