SOC16: Marin shows 2017 Pine Mountain 1, Ushers in new 141mm Boost Open QR dropouts

hot damn, marin is back on track! love the pine line.

That’s made any decision about a new bike a bit easier, as it won’t be a Marin.

The proliferation of unnecessary standards designed by marketing people and not engineers is killing the marketplace, it has to stop.

I have never had issues with QR and discs before, and this is much more in my price range, and its Shimano still. This… may be my next bike. What is the front end width?

@ Paul – Has a great point on the bike market having issues. The biggest killer of retail is poor customer service and ability to stock parts for quick repair. Now everything has to be ordered. If the ordering process is not efficient on either end, it takes multiple conversations and days lost. In the past, a repair would have been done in a day or two, now repairs take one to three weeks (average). OEM proliferation of standards has killed the ability for dealers and distributors to stock deeper levels of inventory. Also there is a learning curve figuring out the proper spec. If you order the wrong thru axle pitch, then you have to send it back and hopefully get the right spec, etc… Consumers are pissed. IBD model is broken and it’s the OEM brands fault. Dealers can not easily go to one distributor anymore. They have to contact bike brands and component makers directly which often are difficult to deal with. The distributors and their dealer base who figure this out wins (high customer service). QBP is the closest to the new world order for the bicycle business. They have complete bike lines and all the industry parts in house (not “all” Shimano parts). They have excellent customer service and will get you the correct repair part on their bike lines. Others are coming on strong like Hawley with their bike lines and the industries best outside rep force.

Blame the bicycle OEM’s for the industry IBD’s going away (Specialized and Cannondale are historically the worst offenders).

@Paul and OneLegDuck
I have no idea how you guys have come to the conclusions you have. I have worked in multiple bike shops now and service turn around is never more than 3 days. Consumers are not pissed. 99.9% of people looking at buying a new bike have never heard of bikerumor or pinkbike and when you explain to them the features bikes have and how they change as bikes get more expensive they understand and don’t complain. At least I’ve never had that happen. Perhaps the people commenting on sites like this don’t support their local bike shops.

Auto shops don’t stock everything for every car. Our service department has a lot of basic stuff but obviously not everything. When I tell a customer dropping off a bike that we need to order parts it is extremely rare that they balk at that. And when they do its never someone who has anything nice, its the entry level comfort bike rider or wal-mart shopper that just pulled their bike out of the back of the shed after 6 years. In either case, they get their bike back in 2 days.

Smart IBDs are not struggling. Big OEMs are not hurting anybody. Normal customers are not pissed about anything. Bikes are getting waaaay better. If “the bike industry” that everyone whines about on here didn’t try to slowly change things and push things forward IBDs would be having one hell of a time trying to sell you the same thing they sold you last year and 5 years ago and 15 years ago. Hop on any bike from 10 years ago and tell me you’d prefer that to a modern $2K trail bike. If you say yes you’re fooling yourself.

As much as this ”first event of the season / first ‘new’ standard” will get the Trolls frothing, a QR version of the wider 148 standard is not neccesarily bad. If this catches as Boost seems to have then even cheap bikes should benefit from a stronger wheel build.

Too bad about their nomenclature since a QR rear hub always sports a 10mm OD. Orbea made the same mistake with their C9-12 adaptable concentric pivot. The root cause of the misrepresentation there was a singular designation in their inventory control system for quick release wheels for both front and rear. Both were labeled as 9mm. Of course that is not the case.

April fools?

I like quick release frames. They work fine with disc brakes. Good move Marin.

I can’t wait to get my hands on this bike…looks like it’s going to be a fun machine!!!

2019 mid-point in the bike season and after a day and half of looking, there aren’t many 141mm QR hubs to be found in the USA. I see Euro web-sites and am about to buy a Shimano FH-MT200 from an Ebay seller in Latvia (probably sourced out of Germany). This is a problem with the trends in the US “bike industry” or lack-there-of. Complete bikes are imported with standards changes and no parts to support when the need arises. This is true for BB standards that changed with C-dale’s BB30a – no after market cranks were immediately on-shore when they give a warranty replacement frame. Same story with this wheel standard three model years into it existing. The bikes that were spec’ed with it were usually good value-to-performance builds that maintaining should be economical as a first option. So not forcing an upgrade that is a huge jump to a rear hub costing several hundred dollars alone i.e. I-9, DT-Swiss, Hope. I’ve checked with QBP and no hub is there but a compete wheel that matches the bikes they sell with this standard has been added to their inventory. I would hope Trek has stock of something – I don’t have access to them but they used a 141mm QR hub on the Roscoe. Weird how Novatec doesn’t seem to be supported very well outside of J&B but still the cost of those hubs is above mid-priced and not a great value-prospect

The 141mm standard is a reality and there needn’t be so much attitude about it coming into existence – it’s a reality and pragmatism says – “deal with it”. The sourcing of a hub at a reasonable price on this continent seems like it should also be a reality but we are gradually becoming a second rate supply location for bicycle parts. Maybe these bikes are commodity items now – so disposable or maintained only at higher costs?