I met some of you last year at empire trails and got a bit of a tour. May need that again as I destroyed my second hand mountain bike by riding with my son. I wrapped the rear derailleur around the spokes. No idea what happened there.
I figured since trek has a good sale right now I went to checkout the Marlin 5 at Cyclesmith and took it for a ride and knew it was the bike for me. Now to hit some trails.
Planning to do the blues and greens at Keppoch. Old cobequid road in Enfield. Nine mile trails. Mastodon trails and definitely lots of Empire.
My only issue with the bike is I can’t get the seat post to drop very much. They did cut it a bit and I can do another inch or so. I guess the only way to find out is get it to some trails.
Thanks, I see most are like $400 on Cyclesmith. Do you recommend any one in particular. $400 is way out of my price range right now I do see some cableless ones on amazon.
Your post is likely hitting the bottle cage bolts. A dropper post may have the same issue (depending on the make/model) but unfortunately can’t be cut to length like your current post.
Looks like there’s a second bottle cage mount anyway though.
Yes there is! I was going to use this to mount an Airtag but I can move that to the water bottle cage I believe. but after removing the screws what do you fill in without voiding warranty. I assume water would get in if left open?
Just removing the bolts may not solve the problem. The frame is usually a bit thicker where the bolts screw in to better hold them. The extra frame material protrudes into the seat tube and may also be interfering with the post. A shorter post or a dropper that doesn’t need to be inserted as far may be your best bets.
I’m a fan of the OneUp posts, Tammy and I are both running them (albeit different lengths) on our trail bikes. They have a calculator on their site to help you figure out how much drop you can get, and you can decide if it’s worth it. They also claim to have the shortest insertion length of any dropper, so it might be a good option for you.
There other gotcha, which I wouldn’t think you’d need to consider on a mountain bike from 2023, which is whether that frame is compatible with internally run dropper posts. I googled a little bit and it seems that it’s not setup for that, if that is indeed true you’d be looking for an dropper post with an externally run cable. Can you internally route a dropper post on a Trek Marlin??? - YouTube
Dropper posts are super cool and it definitely helps with confidence on tech stuff to be able to get the seat out of the way. That said though, there’s nothing wrong with just adjusting your seat height up or down with the seat clamp depending on the type of trail your riding.
If it’s just the water bottle cage bolts that are preventing the seat post from inserting further into the seat tube you could take them out and trim them shorter if you don’t want to leave the holes open on the frame.
I’ll have a dropper available soon. Fox Transfer. It’s on it’s last legs, but still goes up and down. 30.9, internally routed. Will be dirt dirt cheap, but needs to be sent away for maintenance as it requires special tools. I’m buying a new one instead. If it fits, it’ll get you by for a bit.
Thank you very much. I think my seat tube is 31.6.
I took the screws out of the bottle cage and it still wouldn’t go down.
Cyclesmith put in a much shorter one for me to try and it was amazing. They wouldn’t cut mine until I took out my credit card.
It’s very very long and to get to riding height doesn’t leave much room at all for more cutting. I have no idea what was different with the shorter one.
Sorry. I am a road cyclist. I am really new to mountain biking.
It’s difficult for me to get to cyclesmith as my Jeep is still at the dealer and it has the bike racks. I have to take the front wheel off to fit it in my car. It’s doable but a pita lol.
Wrapping a derailleur around spokes is not unusual. I’ve done that lots of times. If the derailleur hanger or derailleur get bent or knocked, the jockey wheel extension can catch a spoke and get wrapped around. I’m heavy too, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I flex the wheel and spokes a bit that also causes interference. If I’m on rough terrain, I make it a habit of shifting up at least one gear from the granny gear to make some distance between the derailleur and the spokes. If you hear the derailleur start to ping off spokes, then it’s a good time to check the drivetrain alignment before it gets worse and the derailleur catches a spoke. Most likely the hanger got bent, and it needs to be realigned. Shops have a tool for that.
A friend I rode with always borrowed one of my bikes, and something about his riding style - he pedalled while standing out of the saddle a lot, and I think he had a very “stabby” pedaling style - he would catch a derailleur in the spokes almost every ride.
Taking the water bottle bolts out of your frame is not going to allow you to drop your seatpost because they are not the problem. The water bottle bolt braze-ons are the issue. They are an insert that has the threads for bolts and they protrude into the seat tube thus stopping the post.
Your frame does not have internal dropper post cable routing but if you ditched the front derailleur and went 1x with your drivetrain (you’d want to get narrow wide chainring and a clutched rear derailleur, you’d have to upgrade cranks and shifter and cassette to do so) you could theoretically route a dropper cable internally where the front derailleur cable was and up through the bottom bracket internally. Not 100% confident this is possible, I haven’t had a bottom bracket out of one of those in a while, so I don’t remember exactly what the clearances are in the BB shell.
You’re best off cutting you existing post as short as possible (the bare minimum insertion is 10cm) and lowering it when it gets techy or get an externally routed dropper.
I do see some cableless ones on amazon.