Pack For Adventure With The New Marin Pine Mountain

Hungry for bike packing adventure? The new Marin Pine Mountain brings bags of the stuff, all packed up into a steel-frame mountain bike that's designed for singletrack slaying and all-weekend riding. Time to see what makes our revamped bike-packing mountain bike is all about.

Introducing the new Marin Pine Mountain

The Marin Pine Mountain shouldn’t need too much introduction, it’s been in the Marin lineup for a good few years after all.

It’s our go-anywhere, ride-almost-anything adventure mountain bike, with a heavy dose of bike packing and MTB in its genes. It's a kick-ass MTB hardtail, it's a hardcore flat bar gravel bike, it's an adventure bike, and it could even be a great commuter bike.

It’s built for mountain bike adventures, singletrack, double track, rough roads and bumpy trails. All that whilst riding fully loaded and hauling plenty of gear for a bike-packing night out under the stars.

Load it up with a few brews, a sleeping mat and a bed roll for an adventure or ditch the gear and set it up as a fast and zippy, fun and flowy steel hardtail mountain bike that can cut it with the best of them on the trails.

Marin Pine Mountain 2 on hill top with cliffs and ocean in background

New Year, New Pine Mountain

More than just a lick of paint, the new Pine Mountain has had a complete update, starting down deep with that steel mountain bike frame.

The first job was to update the geometry, giving Pinedog a spruce-up after a few years in the same form. For those that need a recap, bicycle geometry refers to the angles that the frame’s tubes are fixed together. By altering the angles you can design in the bike’s ‘personality’ or ‘feel’ making a laid-back beach cruiser, a compact dirt jumper, a long-low-and-slack downhill bike or anything in between.

The updates were modest but significant. We made subtle tweaks to the head angle and the reach to make the bike a little longer and a little slacker, adding confidence and comfort when the trails become challenging.

Neither crazy steep nor super slack, the Pine Mountain has been refined a little but remains a solid, all-round hardtail mountain bike that’ll handle wherever or whatever your adventures throw in its way. Up, down, along, fully loaded, it’s all good.

We also revisited the Pine Mountains CrMo frame, updating the makeup of the bike at its very roots.

The Pine Mountain remains a steel bike-packing hardtail frame but is now available in two versions. The Pine Mountain 1 is made with more affordable Marin Series 2 double-butted CrMo, and the more performance focussed Pine Mountain 2 is made with higher-end Marin Series 3 custom-butted CrMo with custom cast thru-axle dropouts. You can learn more about our Series 1, 2 and 3 CrMo tubing types here.

Two men sitting next to Marin Pine Mountain Bike

Pine Mountain For Adventure

You’ve heard of bike packing, right?

It’s the school of cycling where you head out for an adventure on your bike, carry everything you need with you and often spend the night under canvas or the stars.

Whilst there’s no one perfect bike packing setup, it makes sense to carry your gear on your bike using frame bags, bar bags and seat packs. This keeps the heavy stuff off your body and makes for a more comfortable, enjoyable ride. Whilst Marin doesn't sell those bags, there are heaps of manufacturers out there offering every type of bike packing bag imaginable, from full custom to ready-to-roll.

The new Marin Pine Mountain embraces that philosophy with open arms, providing a whole load of mounts for bike packing bags, mudguards and luggage racks. In fact, it's one of the very best mountain bike frames with bike packing bag mounts around right now.

Gallery of 4 images showing frame mounts for bike packing bags on Marin Pine Mountain

The Perfect Fit For Your Dream Bike Packing Setup

See all of those little bolts all over the Pine Mountain..? They're for frame packs for bikes.

Those babies are designed to help you quickly and easily mount your preferred frame bag to your Marin, without the need to scuff up your paint by using strap-on or velcro packs. They also allow heaps of freedom with the type of bike frame pack you can run, meaning you can go for a high-capacity full-size frame bag, a half-frame bag and a water bottle or really any combination that you choose.

And, because we know the bike packing crew love custom kit, we’ve published the designs of our frames on our website as downloadable PDFs. Simply pass the PDFs on to your custom frame bag manufacturer and they can build you a bike-packing frame bag that’ll perfectly fit your Pine Mountain. You're welcome!

Marin Bedroll handlebar on a Marin Pine Mountain

And Made For the Marin Bedroll Bar

The Marin Pine Mountain is also designed hand-in-hand with the Marin Bedroll Bar, our adventure and bike packing handlebar. By adding the Bedroll Bar we’re able to give the Pine Mountain a comfortable, upright and relaxed rider-positon and provide a super-convenient place to mount your (you guessed it) bed roll, without interfering with brake and gear cables. The bar’s top brace also offers an easy place to mount GPS devices, lights and other handy adventure gear.

Don’t fancy such a relaxed, upright position? You can swap the Bed Roll Bar for a more conventional handlebar or simply swap some stem spacers to move it to a lower position. Your friendly, local Marin Dealer can help with this if you need it!

Man on hilltop with mountains in background with Marin Pine Mountain

Pine Mountain for MTB and everything else

Of course, the Pine Mountain is a mountain bike at heart and bike packing aside, that’s what we’ve designed it to do. We know you can’t be away bike packing all the time. We also know that you may not want a different bike for every occasion. Or you might want to ride your Pine Mountain to camp, setup and then go on a ‘normal’ mountain bike ride.

And so, strip the bike packing gear off your Pine Mountain and it’s a super fun, steel-framed, hardtail mountain bike with 29” wheels. It’s perfect for big rides in the mountains, technical singletrack and pretty much anywhere or anything you can send it up, along, down or over.

But the Pine Mountain is a bit of a rebel, we love those freaks and geeks here at Marin. It’s a counter-culture, steel hardtail that’s not designed to be a podium chaser or medal racer. This one's all about miles and smiles, good times, good memories and a unique frame that'll last a lifetime.

Sure, that steel frame adds a little weight vs a featherweight racer but it brings a whole heap of fun and steel-framed soul. The Pine Mountain is tough, zingy, lively and super comfortable, bringing that unmistakable compliance that steel riders love. And don’t forget those big 29” wheels for easily trucking over rocks, roots and rough stuff.

Studio image of Marin Pine Mountain 2

Marin Pine Mountain 1

The Marin Pine Mountain 1 is our budget-friendly steel bike-packing mountain bike hardtail. For a buck under fifteen hundred dollars you’ll get our fully updated geometry, series 2 double-butted CrMo frame and all the bike packing mounts you’ll ever need.

We’ve built the Pine Mountain 1 up with a 120mm RockShox Recon RL fork, wallet-friendly Marin wheels and grippy, dependable Vee Tire Flow Snap 2.6” rubber. There are also a Shimano shifter, rear mech and disk brakes and, of course, our much-loved Marin Bedroll handlebar.

And remember, whilst the Pine Mountain 1’s frame is a little more budget focussed than the higher spec Pine Mountain 2, the geometry and frame-mounts stay exactly the same.

Marin Pine Mountain 1

The Marin Pine Mountain 2 is our high-end, high-performance steel bike-packing mountain bike hardtail. Our Series 3 CrMo version of the frame upgrades to higher-grade CrMo for a lively, zippier ride and has a bolt-through rear axle for a little added stiffness where it matters.

The Pine Mountain 2 packs in a RockShox FS 35 fork, Shimano SLX 12-speed drivetrain, Vee tire Flow Snap 2.6” tires, powerful Shimano brakes and a super-useful dropper post for added comfort and speed.

If you're looking for a high-end bike-packing mountain bike that'll slay singletrack without killing your budget, you're going to love the Marin Pine Mountain 2.
Studio image of Marin Pine Mountain 1

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