Marin San Quentin Hardtail Review: The Good Life Behind Bars | 2024 Value Bike Field Test

Review – With its dirt jump-inspired geometry backed up by a solid spec choice, the Marin San Quentin promises to be a riot on the trails. How did it handle the wet trails of Squamish, BC?

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[Music] the Marin San Quentin which is one of the few mountain bikes with a name that rhymes is a non-nonsense alloy hard tail in recent years the brand has been putting out many an aggressive bike and this seems to fall in line with that albeit with no rear travel but is the Hardcore hard tail category still in rude health or does it risk isolating itself as a blast from the past with full 29in Wheels a spelt aluminum frame a 64° head angle and some pretty nice components the Marin sand Quenton is certainly equipped to handle the descents plus it has that little teeny tiny stem it’s so cute nice and little some highrise bars yeah um the San Quenton has very thin seat stays a lot less material than the sawaro um Marin builds the San Quenton as having dirt jumper inspired geometry and some of those characteristics do come across on trail we found it to be pretty fun on the desense the bike then has aggressive geometry and a build kit that aims to build upon that but how does this bike climb and does the slack out nature risk making it feel sluggish or dull the San Quenton may have some dirt jump Inspirations to it but it actually climbs really well it’s a hard tail so obviously very efficient but the position nice and comfortable upright kind of feels like your classic trail bike would yeah for sure I found the C Tu ble was pretty steep feeling on this bike and for me especially like put me in a pretty upright position um the head tube angle may look really slack on paper uh 64° is pretty slack for a modern hard tail but it’s important to remember that because there’s no rear suspension that head tube angle is just compressing as the fork goes down so it does feel fairly Nimble in tight climbing situations yeah we’ll get to it a little bit in the component section but this bike has those dual Maxis a tires which typically when they show up I’m kind of like that’s that’s a lot of Tire to be pedaling around especially on a hard tail as a rear tire the a guy tends to be pretty slow but on this it felt nice I give good traction they’re wide 2.5 in wide so it gives you a little bit more taking the edge off of things and uh yeah overall it’s a it just feels like a trail bike pretty Zippy like we went for a like a little power hour last night after work and I Rod the San Quenton and found that it was like motoring up Trail just fine like it does not feel like a draggy winch and plummet bike agile and Zippy on the climbs the climbing section on a hard Tail review was always going to be a little scant but what about the descending can this bike make good on its slacked out credentials and how much difference will there be to the other hard tails on our test one of which was notably quite harsh I’m always a little skeptical when the topic of compliance or Comfort comes into play on hard Tails um in my mind it’s the rear triangle is just a triangle and that’s a pretty stiff shape but there is something going on with the Marin that makes it a little bit more comfortable than some of the others on test I found it maybe it’s the super thin seat stays maybe just like the wall thickness of the tubing they’re using but it does take the edge off a little bit yeah I mean a night day difference between this bike and the Haro Saro did some back-to-back laps when I’d hop on this one just instantly comfortable felt like I was even able to generate more speed by pumping um just kind of felt like I didn’t have to adapt my riding style that much obviously you need to ride a hard tail a little bit different than a full suspension bike but there’s something about the Marin that lets you get away with some things that you might not think you could on a hard tail so there’s some sort of magic happening there it’s not actually magic but something is taking the edge of all those harsher hits yeah and I think to merin’s credit that dirt jumper inspiration you know may sound like marketing Hokum but I actually think there’s something to it um this bike was way easier to get off the ground than the Saro for instance or even the Cobain and it just it does pop off lips nicely it keeps things Lively um I kind of liked the fact that it’s not trying to be a full suspension Enduro bike it’s like its own little thing it’s a like a nice n plus1 bike in that way yeah I think it really does have that nice General all around trail bike feel you’re mentioning how easy it is to get off the ground and that kind of helps give it a smoother ride because if you’re in the air there’s no bumps so you get the really like chattery bits super easy to pop kind of lightly get through it um you flower terrain even the techy bits too the geometry kind of works out it’s got 40 mm Fork which feels really appropriate for this bike you it’s not one of those big long slack Over Fork things but it’s also not an XC bike so really nails that middle ground I think part of that more uh agile feel is just the higher bottom bracket it has um you know where the sawaro because it’s so low slung it can really just plow through stuff and stick to the ground I think the San Quenton bias is more towards yeah popping off stuff and staying lighter on the bike um but then you can kind of rely a bit on the super Ry tires to like lean into corners and make up for a little bit of the uh cornering geometry that’s the Saro might have over it when people think of hard tail they might think of value however when Brands think of ENT level bikes they can sometimes miss the mark when it comes to value and performance how does this bike Faire and does it have any tricks up its sleeve it might seem like a little thing and it kind of is but the grips on the San Quenton are great and then you know a lot of times a value bike comes and they put the cheapest grips on there super hard weird shape things but these I’d happily run this on any of my bikes so just another little thing you won’t have to swap out which is great if you’re on a budget one clearly budget item on the frame is the chain slap protection and to a luster degree the paint as well uh We’ve noticed that on our test bike we’ve already started getting some paint chips from the chain hitting these stays it does have like some little rubber chain slot protection but it’s quite minimal um and so I think just you over the regular use cycle of this bike you’re going to get some damage to that chain stay but just VIs ual um other component highlights on this bike we’ve got those slate the trp Slate brakes the Z2 fork and for both of those they’re like pretty ideal for this bike um we liked him on the Saro we like them here uh worth mentioning is the fact that this Z2 does not have clicks on the rebound compression uh it’s just missing for some reason but you can still make the adjustment you just kind of have to count rotations this bike then is more than just your average hard tail and it spec Falls in line with that but who’s it for I think the San Quenton would be a great bike for somebody that wants a hard tail as their only bike or for someone that wants a hard tail as their second bike like this is the handling of this bike in the overall feel I think is good enough to sway hardale Skeptics you if you haven’t ridden one in a while or kind of put them to the side as being too harsh and no fun and just unforgiving San Quenton is not any of those things so definitely just a great bike to for everyone to experience what makes the San quent in a great second bike as you mentioned is the fact that it doesn’t really feel like it’s trying to compete with your longer travel full suspension bike um while it can certainly handle all those same Trails it’s just a little more biased towards fun and lifely handling um it just I don’t know it feels like a good well-rounded mountain bike but one that is a bit less serious if you’re just getting into the sport and if this was your first mountain bike this would be a great place to start doesn’t beat you up you can gain the skills and just keep riding it for years and years to come so yeah definitely a good starting point as well hard Tales can be a great way for people to find a lot of the things they want in a package that costs less other times they can be a bike that is genuinely aggressive and built with the downhill and trail riding in mind that said the Marin Isn’t So biased in the descending that it undermines the charm and responsiveness of a hard tail the biggest Pro of the San quent is just how it rides it’s Nimble it’s fun it’s quick pumps well jumps well kind of everything you would hope your hard tail would do um the only real con we could come up with and this was like scratching our heads to find it was just the the pain quality in the chain slot protection uh I think it’s going to show some damage quicker than some of the other bikes on test and you know that’s something that you could add some quick chain State protection out of mastic tape to fix but it would be nicer to see something from Factory that’s a bit better the Marin San Quenton is a blend of many attributes to give a well-rounded bike with a modern interpretation of the hardcore hard tail Maxim thank you for watching the value bike field test be sure to subscribe to pink bike so you never miss our latest mountain biking videos