Marin, Marin Bikes, Marin Mountain Bikes

Marin Bikes was established in 1986 in San Anselmo, California and celebrates its 23th anniversary this year. Our offices lie in the shadow of Mt. Tamalpais, commonly referred to as the birthplace of mountain biking and still at the heart of the sport.

On advice from his doctor, founder Robert Buckley rode a mountain bike to help heal a nagging knee injury and quickly became passionate about the sport. He founded Marin Mountain Bikes upon this passion and remains dedicated to the pursuit of the ultimate cycling experience. After 20 years Buckley remains at the helm of Marin, directing daily operations and is the creative drive behind the brand.

The first model to roll off the line was the Madrone Trail. Buckley teamed up with local Marin County bicycle enthusiasts to design the bike and realised quickly that he was in the process of changing his life and the lives of many around him. Providing bicycles with introductory price points along with performance hand-built racing hardtails, Buckley and Marin Bikes toured the West Coast and the Rocky Mountains promoting and selling Marin Mountain Bikes.

According to Buckley, “After 20 years of business, we haven’t lost sight of our core values. I am committed to building a bicycle that is light-weight, durable and designed to give riders the highest quality ride for years to come. I’m proud of what this company has become.”

Since its founding, Marin has built its strong reputation upon a number of technological advancements including:

• Lightweight Hardtail Mountain Bikes, utilising state of the art titanium, carbon, aluminum and steel materials combined with cutting edge frame technology

• Quad-Link Full Suspension Mountain Bikes, a proprietary technology providing the most effective and reactive suspension system available today. Recipient of US and International Bike of the Year awards in 2007 and 2008.

• Performance Oriented Flat Bar Road Bikes meld the comfortable style of a mountain bike with the light weight aerodynamics of a road bike

• City and Urban Bikes, clearly leading the industry and setting the standards for performance and design

Marin Mountain Bikes first established its reputation its high performance model mountain bikes. Today, the company offers a comprehensive line of nearly 75 bikes for all skill levels and preferences, in the Mountain Biking, Road Cycling, City, and Juvenile categories.

Marin’s employees continue to ride the same trails and experience the same emotions that gave birth to the sport of mountain biking. Marin’s products include bikes, bike accessories and clothing, and are sold by independent bicycle dealers throughout the United States and distributed in 45 countries around the globe.

Hydroforming: Hydroforming permits the construction of complicated 3-D engineered shapes. By changing the external dimensions of a tube as well as adding strategically located creases or folds, we can alter how it behaves under a rider’s load. Increasing the diameter of a tube near a welded junction increases its strength by spreading the loads over a larger area. Much the same way as the diameter of a tree becomes greater at its base, our product engineers have taken a lesson from nature and applied it to our shaped tubesets. The folds and creases in the surfaces of our Edge tubesets add stiffness without adding weight. Hydroforming is done at room temperature under immense pressures. This construction technique minimises physical damage to the tube during the forming process as well as maintains the grain alignment of the material. In turn we can use less material safe in the knowledge that we’ve started with the strongest base. The results are incredibly lightweight and strong frames that can only be a Marin Bike.

Custom Butting: Every tube used in the construction of a Marin bike begins life as a simple, plain round tube and is transformed into a performance machine. Butting is a process by which a plain round tube has material removed in order to make it lighter without sacrificing its useful strength. By customising this process for every size of every bike in the Marin line, we’re able to better tune each bike’s ride quality for each specific rider. Oftentimes tubesets are designed with the tallest riders in mind and are cut down to fit shorter riders. While this would save money in the frame manufacturing process, we believe that this is a short cut on quality and performance. Marin Bikes’ near-custom frame production means every bike is built with you, the end rider, specifically in mind.

The CXR mountain and road frame program was born
from the goal of designing a lightweight frame with organic shapes for unique aesthetic and structural properties. By design, the flowing shapes helped Marin designers create
a structure that distributes external forces evenly throughout the frame. This dispersion effect takes force input loads and spreads them to all of the structural members of the frame, allowing the tubes to be made as thin as possible without sacrificing stiffness or durability.

The tubes that make up the frame utilise 4 different grades of carbon fiber ranging from medium to very high modulus. These filaments are then woven into one of 4 separate geometric orientations. The combination of utilising different filaments in conjunction with the orientation of the weave, as well as selective choice of resins adds strength and stiffness in key areas while tuning ride characteristics that are nearly impossible to achieve with metal.

Unique frame details include bridges at the seat tube and head tube junctions to further disperse loads and a head tube that is enclosed by reinforcement bands from the top and down tubes. These structures increase strength without having to employ larger diameter head tubes that require forks with larger and heavier steerer tubes.

The award winning Marin Quad Link 2.0 system provides riders with an efficient pedaling platform while managing terrain by modifying the axle path of the wheel and leverage ratio of the shock to simultaneously react to pedal and
bump forces.

Design: While the concept of the Quad Link 2.0 system is the same as the original design, the new version provides a slightly more linear action for suspension movement. Like the first generation Quad Link, the rear wheel’s axle path and leverage ratio on the shock changes as the wheel moves through its travel to provide optimised control and energy transfer. This is accomplished by having the swingarm rotate off of the two Quick Links that connect the swingarm to
the mainframe.

Movement: Because the swingarm is mounted to two links, it does not rotate from a single point, or pivot. Instead, the swingarm “floats” or rotates from a constantly moving pivot point in space. This pivot point is called the Instantaneous Pivot Center(IPC). Because of this changing pivot location, the shock’s leverage ratio and the axle path of the rear wheel change to allow the suspension to react differently to pedal or bump induced forces. The initial pivot point begins above and forward of the BB to provide a higher leverage ratio on the shock. When the suspension is first compressed the rear axle travels in a rearward and up direction, increasing the effective chainstay length and providing a greater leverage ratio on the rear shock.

Results: These features add up to better square-bump compliance and reduce the tendency of having the bike stall when encountering an impact (especially important to maintain speed while coasting through a corner or when trying to clear that technical climb). The lengthening of the effective chainstay also causes chaingrowth, which promotes the rear wheel to dig into the ground and maintain traction under pedaling force. Midway through the travel the axle path changes to an arc around the bottom bracket, yielding zero chainstay growth to allow the wheel to freely move without any pedal induced interference while the leverage on the shock gradually decreases to slow compression and resist bottoming out on hard landings. The result is a constantly adjusting suspension system that allows the suspension to easily react to small bumps to maintain traction and reduce rider fatigue while providing greater control under hard impacts or landings. A lifetime warranty on all bearings ensures that the suspension will operate smoothly for the duration of ownership.

• Progressive shock leverage ratio resists blowing through travel and bottoming out on large impacts

• Short links equal quick change in leverage ratio to quickly adapt to trail conditions

• Zero chaingrowth later in the travel virtually eliminates bob and pedal-induced lockout

• Patented 4 bar 4 bolt system exclusive to Marin minimises wear and tear on pivot points while reducing weight

Correctly setting up your Marin Quad Link suspension bike is very important in order to maximise the effectiveness of this leading edge design. While we recommend personal tuning for all usage, these guidelines will enable the rider to start from a recommended and optimal setting.

Regardless of the bike model or rear shock, optimal sag setup for the Quad is measured at the rear shock from the dust wiper(located on the shock canister) to the rubber O-ring while the rider is sitting static in the position they would normally ride the bike.

It is important not to bounce onto or off the bike when measuring sag! Be gentle and roll onto and off of the saddle in order to not disturb the sag measurement (lowering the saddle may help). The range of sag settings is provided to tune the ride characteristics and feel of the bike. With less effective suspension designs that rely on more air pressure to counteract pedal bob, the Quad-Link FRS design requires appropriate sag to be completely functional. More air does not necessarily mean a more effective ride on a Marin! Note that within the recommended settings, more air - less sag, will translate into a more cross-country style ride for maximum pedaling efficiency. Accordingly less air - more sag will make for a plusher feel for ultimate bump absorption and control.

Focusing on Women’s Needs: The WFG line that we have designed is more than just about frame modifications. Our designers have carefully chosen parts and accessories that leverage the strengths of a women’s ergonomics. Each WFG model is designed to incorporate these elements in order to maximize the cycling experience for each rider.

With the same attention to detail as our other models, we use custom drawn and butted tubesets in each size to tailor the ride feel. We specifically tune suspension forks to better match a woman’s weight distribution, and carefully chose parts to improve comfort and fit at all contact points.

• Shorter top tubes reduce the reach to the handlebars accommodating shorter torsos.

• Custom tuned suspension components maximize performance for a woman’s body weight distribution.

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