Last fall Marin debuted a low-priced 120mm aluminum Hawk Hill mountain bike with 27.5″ wheels and what they call MultiTrac suspension. In English what that actually meant was a full-suspension mountain bike with a faux-bar single pivot design that was at once both super affordable and pretty fun to ride on all types of trails. Well, even after debuting the all new top-end Wolf Ridge this spring with its ride-it-to-believe it 160mm of pedal-able Naild 29er travel, that bike’s price range (there’s a $8600 version!) puts it WAY out of reach for most mountain bikers.
But no worries, the Hawk Hill was a great bike, too. So how could they make it better? Well, Marin has added three new wheel sizes for three more types of rides and riders, all with the same travel. The B-17 hits more loose trail with 27.5+ tires & a bit longer fork; the Rift Zone 29er rolls faster; and the Hawk Hill Jr gets 24″ wheels for the next generation of trail shredders….
B-17, 27.5+ mountain bike
The new B-17 widens the Hawk Hill out to fit proper plus sized tires into the same 120mm of MultiTrac travel to make for an affordable trail bike ready for tackling rough & loose terrain. It is now the most trail capable bike in the Hawk Hill family with 2.8″ tires on 38mm internal rims.
Marin is really broadening the family, so the squishy Plus bike gets you three spec levels that are the priciest out of the butted aluminum MultiTrac series. Each of the bikes gets a 130mm travel fork, Boost spacing, modern long, low & slack trail riding geometry, internal routing, and a stealth dropper post.
The base B-17 1 starts at $2100 with an NX1 groupset & Shimano M315 brakes. The mid-level $2650 B-17 2 steps up to a Shimano SLX 1×11 & nicer MT500 brakes. Then the top end $3700 B-17 3 bleeds into the premium market with that nice looking titanium-look paint job and a wide GX Eagle 12 speed drivetrain & Deore hydraulic brakes.
Rift Zone, 29″ mountain bike
The 29″ Rift Zone is all new too, taking the same 120mm MultiTrac design and adapting it for more speed with wagon wheels. Designed for all-day epic trail riding the Boost spaced 29er is meant to benefit from better rollover.
Three complete builds are also available here – $2650 Rift Zone 3, $1950 Rift Zone 2 & $1550Rift Zone 1 – that each get modern trail geometry, short 435mm chainstays, and 2.3-2.4” tires on 29mm inner width tubeless-ready rims. All of the bikes share the same frame with internal routing and 1x drivetrains, with the top two getting spec’d with dropper posts.
Hawk Hill Jr, 24″ youth mountain bike
Like the larger siblings in the Hawk Hill family, the new Jr was developed on the same Marin MultiTrac suspension. It still gets 120mm of travel front and back making for a proper trail shredder for young riders, and even what Marin says is modern low, long & slack trail geometry (although we’re not entirely sure what that means for kids.)
Even though the Hawk Hill Jr comes with 24″ wheels with 2.25″ tires (& a QR rear wheel), it is actually a 26″ bike so you can size up the wheels when your little grom outgrows the smaller wheels, and it even has an upgradable rear dropout to a 12×142 thru-axle to match the 15mm thru-axle already on the X-Fusion Velvet RL air fork.
Butted 6061 aluminum frame, air suspension designed for light riders, tapered headtube, and a 1×10 Shimano drivetrain with a 11-42 cassette & hydro disc brakes. It even has internal routing, even for a dropper post.
Sounds like a killer kid’s bike to us for $1500.
Hawk Hill, 27.5″ mountain bike
In 2017 the 27″ Hawk Hill only had a single spec. Well, obviously Marin got a good response out of the bike (see all those bikes above), so they are adding two more builds for 2018.
The 120mm MultiTrac frame seems to be mostly unchanged, but now the three versions get wide 27-29mm internal rims and more build options. (Actually the base model sticks with 2017’s closed convertible 9-12mm dropout that can even be Boosted, while the new versions are Boost 148mm only.)
The base $1500 Hawk Hill sticks with the same Deore 1x, but a new $1950 Hawk Hill 2 gets upgraded to an NX1 group, a dropper post & Boost-spaced RockShox suspension at both ends, while the new $2650 Hawk Hill 3 gets the same Boost & dropper with an SLX 1×11 setup, and even higher spec suspension from RockShox.
