A friend has trashed his Marin Alpine trail frame (15″), damaging the main frame totally beyond repair. Apart from that all is good. So here’s the question- can a Marin Alpine Trail (2006) be fitted to any other frame sucessfully? And if so, anyone here got anything suitable going at the moment?

1) If he the original owner, ATB may offer some sort of warrenty replacement DEAL* (as it was crash damage).

* These deal aren’t alway worth taking, especially if they offer you an old style frame, see point 2

2) These ‘older’ style frames don’t fetch a lot of money 2nd hand, so go pick up another cheap off ebay?

3) You could swap all the component onto another frame BUT your limited mainly by the sizes of kit already fitted, the main one being the fork steerer length & obviously it’s 130mm travel. Until you know this, you can’t check out of it’ll fit on a new frame. Other stuff like the seatpost (& SP QR) & maybe the need to get adapter for the front mech is inconvenient but not the end of the world.

Are we talking new of 2nd hand too?

OOPS- I missed out the main bit- can he fit his good swingarm to any other frames apart from the Marin Alpine Trail, assuming he could find a decent front end.

Sorry for the confusion 🙁

Edit: all this assumes he has an 06 Marin Alpine Trail with the Tara linkage
http://www.marinbikes.com/bicycles_2006/html/bikes/bike_specs/specs_attack_trail.html

… Let’s try again, the 06 Alpine trail, wolfridge & Rocksprings are all exactly the same frame but with differing levels of kit. Also I believe but can’t say for sure the 04 to 06 frames are all basically the same, but normally get minor improvements over the years, until they changed frame shape. So it might fit any of those 3 models from 04 to 06.
Also the original Whyte 46 ‘might’ & I say that whilst crossing my fingers, also take it.

if he can find any if those, he’s onto a winner. He’s not the original owner? ATB sales do a great warranty service, & if nothing else may be able to sell him one (if they have one) or answer the question with backing from Marin tech’s

z1ppy- many thanks for that, really appreciated 🙂

Owain- now you know!

🙂

Ambrose, I have a 2006 Marin Alpine Trail frame 15.5″ in very good condition if your mate didn’t get sorted out.

I’m about to list it on ebay so let me know if interested.
Not decided on definate price yet but was thinking about £150.
Cheers, Ian.

So much frame for so little money, IMO, though not fashionable so nothing you can do about that.
Great climbers and descenders, though the alpine link made them better overall.

Currently tiding up my brothers for him.