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Marin Pine Mountain 2 Review (2021)

Need help deciding which bike to buy next? Click here​ for my bike consultation service.

2021 Marin Pine Mountain 2 (Steel) Review

Pros and Cons

Pros:
  • Extremely supple frame
  • Tall Stack
  • Lots of barnacles/bag mounts
  • Fantastic retro look

Cons:
  • HEAVY!
  • Tires are awful and lack grip (and are heavy)
  • Gometry is lacking for a modern trail bike
  • Cranks are too long

Who it's for:

  • People who don't care about weight
  • People who want a smooth riding bike
  • Marin fans
  • ​Commuters

Who it's NOT for

  • People looking for a modern trail geometry
  • People who are concerned with weight​

My full thoughts on the 2021 Marin Pine Mountain 2

today we're in Sedona Arizona and we're gonna take the pine mountain to out on a trail to see how it fares as a trail bike now this bike is an adventure slash bike packing bike it's meant for hauling loads and kind of exploring it's not meant for shredding trails but we're gonna see how it does at that so we're gonna go take it on some blue and some black trails today in Sedona well ride with my wife dusty Betty today if you haven't seen a channel she focuses on women's mountain biking so if there's a lady in your life you're trying to get hooked on mountain biking or if you want to learn how to make mountain biking more fun for your lady go check out Tess's Channel okay two things already about this bike number one it's cool we have all these bolts to bolt stuff on but this one is interfering with the dropper and I can't lower the dropper any more it's a 150 mil dropper I can almost always run those on a size medium but not on this frame so I have to step down to a 125 ml dropper which is a bummer I wish I could insert that more maybe if I went with a different brand dropper it'd have not such a long tube down there that's pretty long and number two is the bars it feels like right here at the ends they bend down and it feels like an old cafe racer where it looks cool but I don't want my hands in a down position I want them more up at least for trail riding maybe this will end up being my all-time favorite position for bike packing we'll see but the bars feel funky I like that they're trying new things and going with that taller stack that makes it real comfortable but the shape of the bars just feels weird this bikes heavy it's almost 35 pounds and it feels heavy some bikes are heavy in the ride light this bike doesn't really like bright light your ride smooth though this thing's a Cadillac I'll talk more about that later sixty six and a half degree head angle 430 changed a 430 reach on this size medium normally I like a longer reach but on an adventure bike I actually prefer 430 where it's a little shorter like this a little more comfortable I'm not doing quite as much standing on it I like that shorter effective top tube one nice thing about heavy bikes is they usually write nice they just feel planted and solid they don't get bounced around too much if you've ever ridden a superlight bike they kind of dance underneath you you hit a little rock and it bounces around a little more it's a comfortable ride though very comfortable frame feels great super supple steel frame so comfortable that steel and you know I don't think all Steel's are comfortable but this one sure is it is definitely not a light zippy bike it's not an attack charge bike it's more like comfort biker a cruiser bike on this stuff it almost feels like those hybrid bikes that people buy for bike paths

the riding position and just the overall feel it's upright it's comfortable you're not in attack position you're not trying to win any trophies you're just out enjoying the ride and I am enjoying it the components feel a little cheap on this bike it feels like for $2,000 I should feel a little bit more solid Wow I'm feeling the weight I'm tired this is a mellow trail and I'm already tired in other bikes where I'd be charging forward sprinting right now this bike is like the stoner from the 70s he's just living a chill life I wants to remind you to slow down and chill and enjoy it yo dude chill out just sit back pedal enjoy the ride and the harder you try to push with it the more it kind of reminds you to chill out based on the uphills it's interesting how some bikes have attitudes like as you ride them they make you want to ride a certain way or encourage a certain style more than others this attitude is I'll get there when I get there let's enjoy the ride I'd love to see this effect with an XT shifter but most people wouldn't know so that probably wouldn't translate to more sales former ins I'm super winded her bike is about a half a pound from this she's not winded I'm winded this bike feels like a thirty-eight pound bike despite being 34 and a half it's just heavy it's slow to get up to speed it wears you out I don't know why it's the most bizarre thing my legs aren't tired I'm fresh I didn't ride yesterday but I just feel like the tires are full of water so despite the fact that I'm clipped in and dusty Betty's on flats and I'm on an efficient hardtail and she's on a whole suspension she's gonna take off from us yeah that's just has a hard time getting up to speed the effective top tubes a little short for a medium they've got this tiny tiny stem on here I am actually tempted to run a longer stem on this because the seated position feels a bit cramped

yeah closets way up stuff that's nice it's interesting you know I like a tall stack but I feel like this thing's kind of wheeling out hard to keep the front end down the cockpit feels cramped feel like my knees are at the bars head angle feels pretty modern for what it is you know the seat tube angle feels good but the bars just feel really close for this stuff and keep in mind I'm taking this bike where it's not intended for the sake of review to help you decide if this is a good buy for you or not okay I absolutely hate these tires on side hills sorry to be so negative I got nothing against this bike I actually really want to love it but I'm gonna call out what I'm feeling so these tires on side hills want to fold and they don't grip they slide and here in Sedona being on a side Hill I don't like that they look cool with the tan walls have gotten more compliments from you guys on this bike from the looks alone because of the tan walls but the treads not cutting it right now it's okay for climbing that flat stuff but when it gets on a side hill on an off camber

they are supple tires they feel like they've got a inside wall man I wish I could use the full range of this dropper that's a bummer if this were my bike I'd probably swap out the dropper and get something that fits in there better even just going down one centimeter would probably make this a usable dropper for me all right it does okay on technical climes it's a beast but it does all right I want to take this time to fake my patrons who make this channel possible if you like it and you want to see it succeed and hope that this channel still around in a year consider becoming a patron to support it it's the only way forward that I'm gonna be able to do this and I love doing it but the amount of work I put into it it's gonna have to become my full-time job and that's gonna require strong patrons and I really appreciate all my fantastic patrons that I have right now now I know a lot of you have bikes that I review and you love them and you get upset when I pick them apart and tell you what I do and don't like about them but that's the point of a review you ever read a magazine or mountain bike website where every bike they review is somehow amazing and they say it's great and there's no such thing as a bad bike those reviews don't help those are more marketing and they're meant to sell bikes they don't really help you decide if it's the right bike for you so anytime I'm reviewing a bike if you own that bike don't get mad if I point out the flaws and compare it to some other bikes because that is the purpose of a review it's not to make you feel warm and fuzzy because you bought that bike it's to tell you how it compares to the other ones so in my reviews I try to be super direct tell you the good the bad and the ugly so you can make a decision about whether this is a good bike for you or not if you need additional back-and-forth you want to know additional details how does bike a compare to bike B I do all that through patreon where I do private consulting with people that are curious before they buy a bike but I'm gonna tell you straight up how this bike is especially at $2,000 I feel like the bar should feel a little bit better I applaud them for trying something different and I like the the upright bars and all that I actually feel like the stems too short on this bike if this were my bike I'd run a fifty maybe a 70 mil stem cuz that reach is really short the fork the rock shocks 35 it works but there is a lot of stiction on the seals if this were my bike I'd replace them with some SKS seals see if that fixes it it just feels kind of Nachi it's not smooth through the travel it kind of stutters through it I also don't like these tires it's interesting you can see these knobs this one's wide narrow wide narrow wide narrow and this pointy edge tries to grab on a side hill and it just ends up rolling it's a really soft knob and so it doesn't grab on a side hill and this is an aggressive tread so you'd hope it could handle aggressive terrain but it doesn't and the sidewalls are soft they feel like a 120 TPI or maybe even a little bit softer they're very soft they're not a stiff sidewall which gives it a nice compliant ride I like that the rims are 32 mil inner I wish they were 35 I'd give this an even bigger profile but 32 is a lot better than 30 I don't feel the tires rolling I just feel them sliding on the side Hills now that is all the negatives about this bike so far I still I'm gonna do a full review of this bike packing because that's where it's meant to be used but there's not a whole lot of info about this so I figure the more info I can give you the more informed you can be this bike is the most supple bike I've ridden ever it might even borderline on noodley where it's not stiff and it's makes for a very comfortable ride it's like a Cadillac it's like when you hit those bumps in the road and it just kind of keeps on squishing and it's such a comfy ride it's like driving a boat but it's not super responsive it's not super twitchy and fast and on edge which is perfect for a bike packing adventure bike like this is so here's what makes it so soft number one are the pencil-thin seat space this is my pinky it is thicker than the seat stays that means this can flex a lot more and it doesn't transfer big vibrations up to the seat up to the front triangle another thing that's giving it a compliant are these cast seats days these are c-channel they're not complete squares they're left open I don't know if that's to save weight or cost or if it was built in compliance another thing is this cutout here is for a slight amount of weight reduction which is kind of silly because I think two of these bolts probably weigh more than that much weight and they could have saved a lot of weight leaving out so many bolts I think they could have gone like half as many right here watch how flexi the bottom bracket area is that's not the tire flexing that's the frame the tire is stiffer than the frame and that makes for a very smooth compliant even borderline noodley ride if this were a race XC hardtail I'd call that noodle II and I wouldn't want it for bike packing though comfort is super important and I love that and so you get way less vibrations transferred to your body when the frame can flex like that so when you hit a curb size rock the frame takes it instead of transferring it to your calves and on a long day that is super nice to have the frame absorbing that instead of your joints so I know I've been critical about some of the parts on this but the frame is super compliant it is super comfortable this thing's like a Cadillac alright enough about that let's get riding it some more we're gonna take it down a black diamond way beyond what this bike was intended for but I know some of you are gonna buy this and ride it on trails like this anyway so we got to find out what it can do there all right let's take this down ground control of a lifetime

doing it people see stars break pretty well okay you're gonna swing wide on the left swing wide yet look through you got it that's it perfect we're halfway done a little quicker and kind of a trial speeds oh this feels good man this frame is so smooth tubing you'll know pivot

you're good okay lean forward this is the last obstacle attack position you're gonna lean into that vermin swing the left one here at the bottom stay loose lean forward more speed yep there it is yeah ha ha ha so proud of her cleaning this up the bottom

I'm so glad they chose to go to 65 mph degree heading with this in case you do want to be stupid like me and take you down rowdy stuff like that or even a bike like these specialized views all right now the ground control is done and we took it on some chunk there which it did really well at thanks to the slack head angle for a adventure bike that compliant frame really helped almost like having 1/2 inch of suspension the tire just wants to stay on the ground more doesn't bounce and skip as much it's funny someone could ride one of these and get an impression about hardtails and then ride a common saw meta and get a completely different impression about our tails not all hard tails are created equal

now that we've hit the black diamond let's take it off some blue stuff see how it does on a regular trail I thought most people would encounter

okay this light has some pep in it or an adventure bike in fact this might be the most adventure like this thing's pretty fun on trails all these tires for this terrain yeah between the tires and the frame is one compliant ride whoa almost another washout they're not a good front tire for me it feels like it has half the cornering nobs it does this bikes a tank no other way to say it it's heavy the rides heavy feels heavy definitely saps your energy on the flat it's okay yeah this wouldn't be my first choice as a trail bike if you got it can you ride it on trails absolutely you can have fun but and compared with other stuff out there they're better trail bikes if there's some downhill and some slope it's fun if it's flatter up it's awful

Mike definitely has a solid feel to them your feet fall around in the wind I

probably put it more along the likes of us early sign of it a little bit heavier steel by now we have a 30 minutes this bike was not meant to be a trail bike so don't expect it to do well in this category but anyone who buys a bike with knobby tires can be expected to take it on some single track and explore the trails around them and that's why I took this out I don't love it as a trail bike it's okay maybe different tires and fix that but the elephant in the room is the weight this is a heavy bike and it rides heavy on the trail climbs are awkward I'm gonna drop that stem as far as possible for climbs because that front end just wants to lift the seat angle feels steep and it actually feels good I like the seat tube angle I like the seated position I love the feel of the frame of the back end it's really flexi and takes a lot of the bumps out I don't love the fork but it's okay I don't know I feel like for $2,000 it should be a little bit better on the trail and maybe it's just things like the seat the wheels cranks and bars that are weighing it down I hope it's not the frame but I'd be super curious to strip it all and just see what just the frame weighs and see how high you could possibly build one of these I'm not a weight weenie most of my bikes are over 30 pounds but pushing thirty-five here you really feel it and I felt very fatigued and it saps some of the fun out of it it can still be ridden on trails and you can still have fun but it's a chore riding downhill I'd give it a 9 out of 10 it actually feels pretty composed it need a longer reach to be a true trail bike for me uphill I'm gonna give it 4 out of 10 I do not like climbing on this the steeper gets the more the front wants to lift it's just heavy it's hard to get momentum it gets over stuff but you're tired at the end cornering with these tires I'm gonna give it a 2 out of 10 but with different tires I think this would corner about eight and a half nine it actually corners pretty well and the bike feels pretty balanced it feels a little bit old-school in the geometry with just kind of how short the front end is but it's got kind of an old-school charm to it and I very fond of the old maroon pine mountains that was my first good steel hardtail and I love that thing and I'm glad to see the legacy continuing on with this Pine Mountain I wish this dropper went down a little bit more like I've said playfulness I'm gonna give it an 8 out of 10 it was more playful than I thought it would be for its weight ride comfort 10 out of 10 it's so comfortable it's soaked flexi and comfortable big riders for people who put down lots of power want a sprint and want a stiff acceleration it's actually gonna flex a little too much for you but you don't buy this bike if that's what you're looking for so good job Marin making a compliant steel frame that's super comfortable with rack mounts on the back with all the water bottle bosses and attachment points the next step is to truly take this in its environment that it was meant for it wasn't very fair to judges today as a trail bike so the review is still out for this this is not the final review if this excels at adventure riding then it then it will totally be worth it and this was just an ancillary review to help people understand how does it do as a trail bike because I know a lot of you are curious you like the look of it you like steel you like Marin the price is good for a lot of you as a trail bike I would not buy this but that's not what it's meant for so stay tuned as we reviewed in adventure mode and take it on a bike packing trip overnight and see how it does if you enjoy this and learn something consider supporting this channel by becoming a patron subscribe and like this video and tell your friends about hardtail party we want to help grow this channel thanks for watching there's a party in the mountains and you're invited

​There's a party in the mountains and you're invited.

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      • RSD Middle Child Ti Review
      • Santa Cruz Chameleon Review
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