(upbeat rock music)
(smooth jazz music)
- So today we have a Trek Marlin
that's actually been sitting around here
for a little bit, you might have seen it.
We've stole the crankset off of it for another Flip Bike.
I was planning on replacing it anyway,
so no big deal.
Now I got this bike off a neighbor
with a little bit of bartering,
and I would put the value at about $250,
which is a good deal for this.
But at the same time, it's not perfect
and it's a little bit outdated.
So of course, first of all, bike needs a new drivetrain.
I robbed the crankset.
We're gonna give it a one-by
that it looks more modern,
it's easier to use,
and it's a little bit more mechanically sound quiet.
Second, this is a cross country bike.
And in this area,
it's not so easy to sell a cross country bike.
Everybody wants a trail bike.
It came with these little tiny bars.
I don't know whether the previous owner cut 'em down.
We could probably use those on like a Fixie
or something like that.
But, definitely getting wider bars and a shorter stem.
It also has a few problems.
The wheels are not perfectly straight.
The front disc rotor has a little bit of a wobble in it,
you can hear it.
And the fork feels like it could use a good service.
It's also come down with a case of whiskey grips.
If a bike is really outdated,
it could be nostalgic, vintage, charming.
This is a little bit outdated.
Like the Harlem shake.
They really went to town on the white color scheme here
which was fine for its day,
but it definitely dates it.
The cable housings are all white.
The crown of the fork is white,
and they're just white accents everywhere.
I think we can leave most of them,
but maybe me change some colors around
to just make the bike feel newer and more up to date.
Now, one thing that the bike really has going for it
is that it's a 29er.
Everybody's looking for 29ers now,
especially larger riders who would ride this bike.
And so I really think that's gonna help us
when we go to sell it. So let's get this bike broken down,
give it a good cleaning,
and see what we can do with it.
(smooth upbeat music)
This fork is actually in pretty good condition,
but it's been sitting around for a while
so it could use a good cleaning
and the white crown is a little much.
I think gonna change it to black.
And it's not a bad fork.
It's one of the better Suntour forks,
cause it has a lockout.
And at this point,
we've serviced quite a few of these Suntour forks
and so we can jump right into it.
(upbeat jazz music)
Wow, everything looks really clean in there.
You do this with a pair of vice grips
or channel lock,
and this plastic's gonna get marred up real good.
(upbeat jazz music)
So pretty cool to see how this works.
This is the side with the lockout
and it's not a damper, it is a lockout.
And you can see here
when these two are together it is absolutely locked.
Turn it one click and it moves freely.
Pretty cool.
(upbeat music)
I wanna give it enough time to cure before I sell it.
The longer we wait, the harder the paint is gonna be
and the more durable it's gonna be for the next owner.
In the meantime,
we need to make a couple of little tiny stickers
that we took off the fork.
It's a little detail that we probably don't have to do,
but that's what we're gonna do.
(upbeat retro music)
(printer humming)
I printed out some extra ones
in case we have that same fork in the shop again.
We are going to apply 'em
and then seal in with some clear coat.
Crown is looking really, really good.
Think if I'm careful with it,
we could put all this back together,
make this fork whole.
(upbeat surfer music)
Nothing wrong with something looking
a little bit Bontragery,
but this is very Bontragery.
And so yeah, we're gonna paint the seat.
Now I've done this before.
Painting vinyl is actually not that big of a deal.
You just rough it up like you would anything else
and then put very, very light coats on it.
You can use special vinyl spray paint,
but it's actually not that much different from just Krylon.
So both these wheels need a really good thorough cleaning,
lots of dog poop and grime on 'em
and then we're gonna service both of them.
(soft music)
Okay, so this wheel is a little bit out of true
and the rotor is way out of true.
Now I have this handy little rotor truing attachment
on my stand,
and I'm gonna show you how it works.
This little gauge over here tells me
where the rotor is bent the most.
And it seems like it got stuck on something and pulled out,
right there.
So now I'm gonna grab this spot
with my truing fork
and I'm gonna give it a good push
and let's see how far off we are now.
Now it's not hitting the gauge anymore.
So I'm gonna push the gauge in a little bit more
until it does hit something.
All right, I'm happy.
That's about as good as we're gonna get it.
So we're done with the wheels
and we can move on to putting this bike together.
So remember that full suspension bike
that we absolutely overhauled
and then sold for way too cheap.
These are the handle bars from it.
And actually we replace those bars with wider ones.
But compared to the ones on this bike
these are gargantuan.
So it's gonna get wider bars.
These are a little bit marked up
and so we're gonna throw some paint on 'em.
So the idea here was not to totally repaint the bars
but rather to make all the scratches and stuff less visible.
I wanted to leave the Rocky Mountain Bike logo.
It's a name brand, it's a good company.
Now as for the stem,
I've been using these Hussefelt stems from Sram.
They're pretty good and they're really cheap.
This derailer has seen a lot of miles,
so has this cassette but they don't look bad.
There's nothing wrong with them.
I'm just gonna have to do a lot of cleaning
and a real good once over on 'em
and I think we can get away with this.
So the drivetrain cleaned up really nice.
Kind of gnarly.
This has definitely seen some action,
but there's nothing wrong with it
and he's getting a 50 tooth cassette
which is an enormous upgrade.
Pedals.
I've got a used set of CrankBrothers Stamp 1 Pedals.
They're very large.
Here it is compared to a standard size pedal,
but this is a large bike so that's gonna be perfect.
Aside from the whiskey grip problem,
which we could solve with some alcohol,
these aren't that bad.
I'm just concerned about safety.
This end over here is,
yeah, it's all chewed up.
We can't use this.
So I found a set of used grips
that are in near perfect condition.
They just need to be cleaned up
and we'll put bar caps on.
So with that, we've got more or less everything we need
to put this bike back together.
I do have a few surprises in store,
but let's get started.
(upbeat guitar music)
So these are ball bearings from the headset
and this is a race,
the ball bearings roll along this
and that is what makes them work.
Now this particular race is the crown race.
It goes on top of the crown of the fork
and has to get pressed down.
We could keep tapping it with a hammer
until it goes down,
but it is very imperative
that we do not dent or scratch the surface of the race.
Because any imperfections are gonna be felt
when steering the bicycle.
And so we have a special tool to set the crown race.
Okay, so now we're ready to put on this stem,
but we have about 30 millimeters of spacers right here.
We're gonna do something special instead of these spacers.
This is a 10 millimeter headset spacer
and this is part of a stanchion from a Fox 36.
Pat gave this to me
because he's been cutting pieces off of it
to make headset spacers.
And it's gold, it's gotta kashima coating,
probably make the go faster.
So let's cut 30 millimeters off of here
and use it on that bike.
And just like that.
A Berm Peak customs headset spacer.
Wow, gold looks really, really good on this bike.
And I have a gold chain.
So granted this chain is used,
but it was a very, very good chain when it was new.
The only problem is,
it's in two pieces.
To put it back together safely,
we're gonna use some master lengths
and we're gonna put it on the bike
with a couple of different color links.
I don't think anybody's gonna notice.
(upbeat music)
If you just stand back and soak it all in,
it's not noticeable.
I think there's something to be said
for really clean cable routing.
And so we're gonna leave a piece of heat shrink tubing
on the front cable housing.
Then when we're all finished,
instead of putting zip ties around it to make it neat,
we'll just hit it with a heat gun.
It'll shrink around it and look absolutely perfect.
(upbeat guitar music)
It was a good bike originally.
We could have just fixed it up,
but we turned it into a really serious bike.
And whatever we sell this for,
you'd be hard pressed to find something like that new,
especially right now.
I think it's time to soak it in
and stare at it.
(birds chirping)
(upbeat music)
So the bike's up for sale in Facebook Marketplace.
I wrote, for sale is a very clean
and beautiful Trek Marlin 29er Mountain Bike.
Size, large.
The bike has seen very light use
throughout its life and has been fitted with big upgrades,
including a 1 by 11 drivetrain
with a 50 tooth rear cassette.
Some other features include,
large CrankBrothers Stamp 1 Pedals,
short modern stem,
plenty of tire tread,
bolt on skewers for a clean look,
and a gorgeous flawless alloy frame.
This bike needs nothing aside from a willing rider.
The brakes, shifting, bearings,
and all components are tuned up and ready to ride.
Let's find this bike a home
and put another decade of hard miles on it.
So I have the bike listed at $700
because it's worth that, at least.
It's got a modern wheel size,
really functional upgrades, and it is a mint Trek.
This frame has a lifetime warranty.
Let's see if we find a buyer.
So I'm about to load up the bike
and we're gonna sell it this morning, I think.
Seems like a serious buyer wants to check it out
make sure it's the real deal.
And if so, it's a very smart buyer.
They're getting it for 650,
which is an amazing, amazing deal for this bike.
All right, big success.
I didn't have change.
And so I took 640 for it instead of 650.
We made a profit.
We got rid of the bike and it's at a good home.
So what's the breakdown?
So we spent about $5 in paint.
New crankset was 50 bucks.
Used pedals about 25.
5 bucks for grips.
Handlebars came off another Flip Bike, 10 bucks.
Bolt on skewers $12.
Cables, hardware sticker paper 10 bucks.
That drive train even in the condition it was in
is worth 120.
Brand new stem was 30 bucks,
for a total of $267 in parts.
So we sold the crank set to another Flip Bike
and put some of the parts back in the bin,
altogether that's a $50 credit.
We paid $250 for the bike
and sold it for 640 with a profit of $173.
And I was in a big rush to sell that bike.
We could have definitely gotten 700 for it,
if it was up for more than three days.
So I would say we did pretty good.
Another thing, the bike was actually a bait and switch.
When it was listed on Facebook Marketplace,
it had those used grips from the park spin on it.
And when I actually delivered it,
it had a brand new set of Ergon grips
that cost about 35, 40 bucks.
Why not spread a little bit of positivity?
I hope you enjoyed this video.
I hope you learned something.
And if not, I hope you at least found in entertaining.
Check out our Flip Bike playlist
to see other videos just like this one.
Thanks for riding with me today.
And I'll see you next time.