Expensive, flash looking but non exciting performance. (Marin Palisade Trail)

Member Name: eyedo6789

Product:	Marin Palisade Trail
Date:	03/03/09 (73 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks flash and good at riding over bumps.

Disadvantages: Very expensive, can't ride no hands on it.

This is a specialist mountain bike, not quite at professional mountain biker standard, but from a make Marin that some professional mountain bikers use.

I paid £750 for mine and am not that impressed. It is made with lots of expensive components, many of them are Shimano and it has disc brakes which are better than standard brakes.

It is also lighter than your average mountain bike because triple butted aluminium is used in the frame and down tubes and double butted aluminium in the handlebars but this doesn't make it as light as a feather it just makes it lighter than say a £99 bike by about 30% at a guess.

It has an adjustable suspension coil but then so do a lot of £99 bikes. It has 18 gears but so do many bikes.

My main issue with it is that it doesn't ride that well on flattish surfaces regardless of the incline, it is far better than a cheap bike when going up and down kerbs or over steep bumps but I feel that for £750 the bike should be able to handle everything not just bumps.

In my opinion it is not well balanced and if you for example take your hands of the handle bars for a split second it will instantly veer over one way or the other. I have owned very cheap bikes that I could ride no hands for 10 minutes on a flat straight piece of road.

All in all although it is a flash looking bicycle made from expensive components it doesn't offer me much more in performance than a very cheap bike.

All of this is just my opinion based on owning and riding it.

This review is also posted on www.ciao.co.uk
under my user name bella6789

Summary: Insist on a test ride before purchasing it.