Hi everyone!
Every once in a while I come across an entry level bike that is worth mentioning,
and today I'm gonna do a quick check of this 2019 Trek Marllin 6.
This is a 29er, 17.5in is the size, and the color is viper red.
Look at that bright red color of the bike!
And, very first thing you should do, take a look around and see if you find
any small boxes or bags with small components,
and take that out first.
And this is how the bike comes into the bike shop.
I did find another box with small parts
and I'm not going to make this video about how to put a bike together
There is a plenty of good videos out there already telling you how to do it.
So let me put this together and we'll take a look at how it's built.
I just unwrapped it, and install the handlebar.
You can see the front brake is not attached to the fork either.
Look at that color! Love the Viper Red.
You can see Marlin 6, and inside the little box - yeah that's the seatpost and the saddle,
here you have the sqewer for the front wheel.
We have the manual, for Suntour and from Trek,
and you do have a set of pedals, just to get you going.
And here is the bike ready to go!
I was a fun job, and it didn't take me that long,
mostly because the drivetrain was pretty much ready to go.
Very little adjustments that I had to make,
this is a 3x8 so 8 speed in the back,
11T to 32T I believe,
an Altus rear derailleur.
Moving over you have
Shimano Turney a cranks.
The crank length here is 175 millimeters.
And an Altus front shifter.
This is a 3x and as you can see the chainrings,
well you can't really see, you got to believe me.
The chainrings are riveted together
so you cannot replace any of those.
But the reason why I thought this was appealing,
meaning Marlin 6, is because having 8 speed here on the cassette means,
that you have the freehub body that can take anything from 8, 9, 10, speed, 11 speed,
Even 12 speed Sunrace cassette or Eagle NX will fit on that freehuib.
So you can upgrade that anytime you want.
Talking about freehub or the hubs,
these are Formula hubs, they are cup and cone, very similar to Shimano's
and the wheels - 32 spokes, finished with -
don't know if you can see there - 622x20,
that means 20 mm ID, so internal dimension rims.
That's a Schrader valve, not a Presta valve
and the tires that they've used on these wheels are XR2,
XR2 29 x 2.00 inches.
These are not, these are the wire bead I'm pretty sure.
Same XR2 tires up front, 29 x 2.20
Schrader valve again, not Presta,
and that is - the wheel is built around a Formula hub again,
QR (quick release) front and rear,
and that brings me to the front, the fork.
That's a 29er, 51mm offset, SR Suntour XCT 30.
30 refers to the 30 millimeter steel stanchions
that only give you, well,
they give you a lock out which is considered to be a feature.
You have preload,
preload is because this is a coil fork.
Which is great for riding in winter
or if you don't care about maintaining that suspension much.
And that brings me to the frame.
This is a pretty short head tube, it is 9 centimeters as you can see,
it is a straight head tube, non tapered, so 1 1/8 top to bottom.
69.5 degrees head angle for this frame,
but yeah, the frame is what's redesigned for 2019,
and it is redesigned to hide all these cables
and they provide a few of other changes to it.
If you look down here you're gonna see that this is what they consider to be
Silver Alpha aluminum.
Yeah, it's made in China entirely
and back here you're gonna see the size, this is a small medium, 17.5.
They also have 18.5 which is kind of considered to be medium.
You have attachment points here for a bike rack,
and going back you can see QR again
and how the rear derailleur cable is routed here, underneath the chainstays.
Chainstay is 438 mm and together with that 69.5 head angle
gives you a good, somewhat modern cross country-ish type of geometry for 29er.
And that's one of the reasons why I decided to go for this 2019
as opposed to the 2018 or older.
And looking here under the bike, you can see the serial number of the product.
There's no protection on that downtube obviously,
and you can see all the cables and hoses coming out of the frame right here.
Yes, everything is routed through including the brake hose,
some of you might not like that.
Yes i don't like that part of it but there's nothing I can do,
Then you have the front cable, going through there, that's the rear shifter cable.
Bottom bracket shell is 73 mm, threaded, so it's standard for a mountain bike.
You can install any of the current cranks and bottom brackets on this,
which is a bonus.
If you look down here, you're gonna see a little port.
Yes indeed, that is the exit for internally routed dropper post.
31.6 mm, and the dropper post cable will come out over here
go into the frame,
and come out right there, next to the handlebars.
One last thing with the bike upside down:
you see 160 mm discs, these are Tektro branded discs.
Same with the brakes themselves, Tektro HD 275 I think they are.
These are actually quite reliable, I've used them in the past.
They come with resin pads, they can take metallic pads as well.
Here in the back, same thing,
you can see the position of that caliper in the rear triangle
which is quite neat, and the same disc 160 mm Front and Rear.
Bike back on it's feet, and you can see the finishing touches.
They're all Bontrager, the in-house brand for Trek,
so Bontrager Arvada is what the saddle is.
It comes with a seat post that is offset 12 mm,
31.6 mm diameter, Quick Release clamp here, Bontrager branded as well.
The front of the bike, you can see that extra port for your dropper routing.
it comes with a 70 mm stem, which is not branded.
You can see an extra spacers here
so you can move your stem up and down
just to make your handlebar comfortable.
Handlebar which is 720 mm width, has quite a nice back sweep here,
it's Bontrager branded and it has a 5 mm rise
so quite a good bar for an entry-level bike like this.
What you touch and feel here would be Bontrager grips,
I don't really like the shape of these but these are lock-on grips,
and also you see the Shimano shifter
which is not integrated with the brake lever
Obviously, these are Tektro brakes.
You can see the somewhat 2 finger lever over here,
bar clamp on both of them,
and these Shimano 8-speed Altus
are actually true trigger shifters because,
it down shifts just the way you would expect it,
but then to up shift, the only way to do that,
you have to pull on the lever here - so that's how it goes.
And yep, it's quite good for what it's supposed to be.
Obviously we have the same thing on the other side.
Weight of the bike is 32.2 pounds (lbs), that means 14.6 kg.
While that won't win any cross-country racing
but I guess it's quite standard for a bike
in this 6-700 dollar range.
A lot of that weight comes from the fork, I think this is a 2.8 kg fork.
Wheels are probably not that light,
same with the tires, you have tubes in there.
Also the cranks and that bottom bracket are not the lightest around either.
So why did I get this then?
Well, first of all I wanted a bike that I could ride on the road.
Yeah, I know, why not a road bike? Don't go there!!!
But for that I don't want a suspension fork, I don't care about it so this is good enough.
Second, I want to ride this in winter
and if you look here at the fork, the 29er fork,
there's quite a bit of clearance to install a fatter tire for that.
No, I'm not gonna buy a fat bike either! lol
The biggest problem usually with fatter tires
is the rear triangle though,
and if you look at this 2019 frame
it provides quite a bit of clearance.
I looked in the store at the previous model
and a few other models that this bike shop provided,
and this was by far the frame with the most clearance.
Enough clearance up front for a 2.8 tire, that's a 27.5 wheel
with plus-size tires.
In the rear, I have a WTB Ranger 2.8,
and the clearance is, look, amazing.
Just really good, plenty plenty of room
for the fatter tires,
I think I could probably even squeeze 3 in tires, front ans rear, if I really want to.
But yeah, overall, I'm pretty happy with this bike.
It is a nice bike if you want to use it the way it comes,
highly recommend to buy the Marlin 6, don't buy the Marlin 7, it's not worth it,
don't buy the Marlin 5 or 4 for quite a few reasons.
This is a perfect beater bike for me,
serves all my purposes, and I'm looking forward to use it quite a bit,
definitely in winter.
What about you guys?
What do you use for beater bikes?
I would love to hear your comments.
Any other suggestions on how to improve on a bike like this?
I would love to hear!
If you found is useful don't forget to Like and Subscribe,
and until next time, I will see you folks on the trails.
Cheers guys, cheers!