Attack Trail
There's a clue in the name as to one of the main changes to Marin's Quad Trail 150 platform - a 10mm travel bump to 150mm. It's not just tweaks, though - this is an all-new frame, with pretty much just the Maxle dropouts in common with the old one. The rear suspension has been rejigged to work better with the always-in-the-granny chain run of Truvativ's Hammerschmidt two-speed gearbox cranks, and the links reshaped for a narrower, less knee-troubling profile. The louvred gussets up front are gone in favour of an extra tube, the front end has sprouted a tapered headtube to accommodate 1.125/1.5in forks and there are extra cable guides on the top tube for a remote-adjustable seatpost.
All the bikes in the Attack Trail range use RockShox Monarch rear shocks. The 6.7, 6.8 and 6.9 use various flavours of 150mm travel Revelation fork, while the Avalanche ups the burl with a 115-160mm Lyrik. The Avalanche and 6.9 (pictured) get Hammerschmidts, the others have triples. They've all got slightly slacker 66° head angles and slightly steeper seat angles and we expect much awesomeness - we loved the original 140mm Quad Trail bikes and these should be better still.
Mount Vision
The 120mm Quad XC platform gets similarly tweaked geometry - head angle on the Mount Vision range is knocked back to 68.5°, bottom bracket drops a whisker and the seat angle gets steeper. Again, the suspension linkages are slimmed down, but there's no change to the pivot locations. The swingarm itself is slimmer, with added curves - as well as making the old one look a little agricultural, it's also a not-insignificant 200g lighter.
A switch to internal headsets drops the front end a little, and there's routing for adjustable seatpost cabling. The front triangle is put together with super-smooth double-pass welds - you have to look closely to convince yourself that it's not actually carbon fibre.
There are three bikes in the range, all with 120mm forks with some form of through-axle - Maxle Light Rebas on the £1,995 5.7, QR15 F120s on the £2,499 5.8 (pictured) and £3,499 5.9. The cheaper two bikes run SRAM transmissions while the 5.9 has a Shimano XT/XTR mix. There's also a women's model with a shortened cockpit, appropriate saddle and rather fine blue-and-white paintjob.
Quad XLT
The long-travel Quake was something of a departure for Marin when it came out, but these days (as the Quad XLT) it looks entirely at home in the range. In its latest incarnation there's 180mm of travel, 1.5in headtube and similar suspension tweaks to the Attack Trail to make it more Hammerschmidt-agreeable and narrower around the knees. There are two models, the £2,899 XLT 7.8 (RockShox Domain fork, Vivid coil shock, SRAM transmission, Avid Code brakes) and the £3,999 7.9 (pictured) with Totem forks and a full Shimano Saint groupset.
Hardtails
Yes, there are hardtails too, lots of them. Probably of most interest will be the ever-popular Trail HT range, which for 2010 includes four bikes sharing the same frame. Entry level is the £575 Madrone Trail, with the £1,299 Rocky Ridge occupying the top spot. Pictured is the middling B-17 at £999 with a SRAM transmission, Avid Juicy 3.5 brakes and a RockShox Tora Air fork complete with 20mm Maxle.
Marin also has a slew of lightweight, slightly more race-oriented hardtails, along with a bunch of women's models. The blue bike on the right is the £849 Juniper Trail which falls into both those categories. There's even a singlespeed dirt jump bike in the 2010 range, which isn't a category traditionally associated with Marin.
And if you're wondering where the 100mm travel Alchemist, announced last year, has got to, the answer is that it's been back-burnered, with "durability issues" cited as the reason. We wouldn't bet against a short-travel bike putting in an appearance for 2011, though...
Full details of Marin's 2010 bikes are up on www.marin.co.uk right now.
