The 2020 Marin San Quentin 2 is a modern aggressive hardtail that takes a page out of the dirt jumper book. It can be ridden at the bike park, flow trails, all day trail rides and can even hit the pump track and dirt jumps if desired. The build spec is pretty good for a bike of this price range. ($1350 msrp) The only part that would leave a bit to be desired for advanced riders is the fork. Those riders would be better off with the San Quentin 3 or an aftermarket fork swap.
The purpose of this bike build is to accommodate a smaller rider that will be able to grow with the bike. Marin sizing chart for this bike goes down to riders of about 5'2''. This custom build will be built around a rider that is under 5 feet.
The big swaps on this bike will include smaller cranks, shorter stem and a rebuild onto 26 inch rims.
The Suntour Zeron crankset retails for $80 and comes with a bottom bracket, 30T direct mount chainring and 152mm crank arms. It's a fairly lightweight crankset that doesn't break the bank. It can be found here: https://www.srsuntour.us/collections/cranks/products/zeron-1-x
The stock wheels are 27.5 and will be swapped to a 26 inch setup for a small rider. The stock BB height is 310mm. The BB height with the 26 inch wheels is right at 304mm so not a drastic reduction or cause for worry at all.
The wheel set was rebuilt using the stock Marin hubs. They are lightweight enough and are good enough to be rebuilt into another wheel set. The Rims are some old stock Velocity Blunt 35 (30.5mm inner width) with a bit of faded anodizing but otherwise will work great. Spokes are the Sapim Dlight double butted spoke. The Dlight profile is 2.0/1.65. Its a great lightweight spoke rated for disc brake wheels. Nipples are Sapim Double square blue alloy. Cant forget about the custom decals too!
Next upgrade was the cockpit to include Spank Spike 35mm stem and Joystick Builder bars cut to 740mm. The bars and stem are spot on with the color matching and shot peened finish. While the grips didn't need to be replaced, they were swapped out for some color matching and are a bit softer and tackier feeling.
The rest of the upgrades included a matching Wolftooth blue seat clamp, SDG Fly Jr. Saddle, HT PA01A Flo yellow matching pedal. The pedal is a good quality, affordable composite platform pedal. The bike was also outfitted with Maxxis DHF 2.5 and a DHR 2.4 with a tubeless setup.
Overall a fun project that will be enjoyed for years to come.
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