My Marin East Peak MTB.

No pedal today, so I thought I'd do a "My bike" feature. Today it's my Marin East Peak full suspension MTB. This will be a short lived feature I think, as I've already done my commuter and I have only 2 bikes in my stable! Hmm, what can I sell?

It's looking a bit dirty here as this pic was taken on my first off road ride since I've been back pedalling.

It is equipped with Rock Shox forks, definately a bit primitive now as they are about 10 years old, just like the rest of the bike. But they do the job. I had to upgrade the rear shock when I had the bike to cope with a MTBer who was slightly heavier than the norm.

It is fitted with pretty much all round XT groupset, although the Avid V brakes do a job as well as their Shimano equivalents. I have never ridden on disc brakes so I can't comment on if I'll be doing a conversion a bit down the road.

The wheels are Mavic rims, the best for doing trailside puncture repairs in my opinion. Wifey's bike has Ritchey rims and they are a bastard to change a tyre on. You always end up puncturing the tube when levering the tyres back on. Very irritating!

A closer inspection of the bike reveals a bit of its history. Which if memory serves goes something like this. I had an Orange P7 as the aquatic photo from  a day or 2 ago shows. I then part chopped it for a Specialized full suspension bike. Does anyone remember the box frame multi link rear suspension bike? No? Anyway it was one of those. It rode fabulously well during the summer, but unfortunately it was not built for an English Winter. Everything siezed on the rear suspension and it became awful, even with intensive maintenance. It had to go. Wayne at my local bike shop had his own Marin East Peak frame that he was due to build up into a bike but he didn't really fancy it too much. He was after a play bike really not a trail bike and he always commented on how much he liked my Specialized. I think you can see where I'm going with this. The deal was done, a straight swap was made after Wayne transferred all the bits from my Specialized to the Marin. Hence the Specialized Crank, stem and hubs on my Marin.

The only other bit worth a mention is the Brooks saddle. We all need a comfy Bum!

It rides really well, what I would say about it is that you don't notice the suspension, even when grinding your way uphill. But you do notice how much it is helping if you ride the same trail on a rigid. That seems the best type of suspension to me.

I thought I'd finish with my Muvi helmet set up. I think the day before it went into stand by mode because it was pretty quiet apart from my panting that is!

You can just see the self tappers and velcro strap from the sports pack. I hope I've got it sorted to do more than 24 minutes now!

Looking at the met I might be up for an off road pedal tomorrow, I'm looking at a few bridleways over Clent. Although the commuter need a bloody good clean after yesterday's ride. So that will be on the agenda for today.

As we have the "Spawn of Satan" we won't be doing anything tonight so It just leaves me to wish you all a very happy new year. Safe miles everyone! And keep going, next year we can all only get better with more poundage shed!