Marin Nicasio +

 

Marin Nicasio +   Size 52cm..
and my first dinner-plate sized cassette, 46-37-30-24-21-18-15-13-11

Fast forward from previous article where my SOMA Stanyan was being tweaked to death in anticipation of the next ??  --- a gravel bike which really isn't so much for the sake of riding gravels. 

Huh? 

Ok, that must have elicited some head scratching but of course I'm not ruling out riding on gravel of course.. In fact would soon be doing full offroad mtb trails with the above... The whole idea of a gravel bike was because after my 10+ years hiatus of not riding on the roads, I'm still queasy these few months when piling on the torque when on tarmac. 

Hence I wanted a rig capable of meandering pavement/pcn/road.. esp those interrupted pavements with lots of ups and down or kerbs.. My mtb is pushed up as a 26er+ with only a 30t front ring so long distance riding is a draggy slower affair. The SOMA as a single speed, while very capable and relatively agile but humping down kerbs or side-winding onto grass and then back onto pavement just isn't what it is cut out to do when countering pavement traffic.

The choice could have been a HT 29er on semi slicks but then I discovered what else people are going goo goo and ga ga these days--  Gravel Bikes! 

Yet as I read more.. it seems what I want would fit more into another of these new marketing terms. An ALL-ROAD...  much like the early days when AM (ALL MOUNTAIN) was "all" the rage then before it evolved to "Enduro" these days.

From 11 down to 2 and now back to 3 sets of wheels in the house...

Anyway...

Well, looking at the entire range, from custom frames costing 2 eyeballs all the way down to sub $1K complete rigs, the filtering started with stats/ numbers on the various bikes and frames early this year...   Next was pondering whether to build another state of the art , money guzzling bike or something that is just smooth and practical that will work for the kind of intended riding. 

...Followed by more mental weaving in between choosing 650B vs 700c wheels and 1x or 2x?.

Alluded in earlier post-- the spectrum is simply too wide for Gravel Bikes (or these All Road). Just got to make a decisive cut at some point.

Back to the drawing board and calculator...

 

... The  48/18 on the Stanyan gives me a Gear Inch (GI) ratio of ~71-72 -- this translates to about ~32-34km/h (neutral wind condition) on the flats at my optimal cadence without spinning out.

A GI ratio in the high 70s or low 80s would be perfect... Something I would get if I swap the front back to my 53t and achieve a GI of 78.48... but let's leave that for later. 

Numbers wise-- that GI would roughly translate to about 35-38km/h on the road at a smooth cadence for a reasonable distance.

Ok-- so if a 1 ring setup on a gravel bike can hit that or more-- than 1x it is.. As for the rear, will just have to see which drivetrain and cassette combo it comes with...

Still not 100% convinced as it is hard sometimes to extrapolate everything in the head. My last geared road bike was more than 10 years ago and certain things can only rely on memories of how "it feels" and those were based on full roadie setup with 23c rubbers... quite diff from things talked about here with grav. bikes today...

While still mulling.. a notification came up on Carousell for a Marin Nicasio Plus, a budget bike but which I have shortlisted from looking at its geom and reviews. 

Size is right --- CHECKED
Price looks right --- CHECKED

Made an appointment with seller and took a short ride-- confirms what I thought all along.  Smiling to myself , I was thinking it' really reinventing a non suspension 80s mountain bike and slapping it on with a drop bar.  Albeit modernize a little in terms of geom angles and a dinner plate sized cog on the cassette... Honestly it really reminded me of some of my old hardtails with 1.8-1.9" tires back in the good old days on canti/ vee brakes.

Heavy, no doubt but I've never been a weight weenie, however that feel good factor of being "one" with this bike is unmistakable.. so it followed me home after a quick transaction.

 

The Nicasio+ came with 11,13,15 for the 3 smallest cogs-- and I find myself mostly on the 15 after a week of getting it. Numbers wise on the GI its no surprise. The 13t is ok but felt it would be great to have something in between 13 and 15. Again numbers don't lie -- the 79.48 GI if there is a 14t cog at the back would be right where I wanted!

Geometry

It just happen that most of the geo numbers on the Nicasio is almost similar to the Stanyan and where they differ-- it is also where I hoped they would be.. ie slacker HA and a tad longer on the center-to front on the Nicasio that happily resolves the slight toe overlap issue present on the Stanyan.

One other bonus is the sloping top tube (and one feature this bike took priority over many others on my list). The size "52cm" is actually a 49cm seat tube.. This extra 3 cm allowing me to plonk one of my old dropper seatpost with max insertion and still not be too tall. 

The other thing is the ETT (effective top tube). Yes I know these days everyone talks about Stack and Reach more than TT lengths but for me calculation revolving around ETT has been ingrained for 20+ years and its hard to change..  525mm ETT has always been my magic number on a road bike-- this one is perfect, but is is the same for gravel geom vs a RB geom? 

Drivetrain : No idea of what the Microshift Advent drivetrain is like and looking at the price point online-- I have an initial bias. But to my surprise, by now I'm actually liking it a lot..

Did some tuning up as usual with any bikes I first get my hands on... only had to give the H-screw a couple of 1/4 turns to solve a jumpy niggle on the smallest cog.. I must say it has been flawless so far (and Im quite demanding in the aspect of drivetrain --coming from mostly XT, Ultegra and XTR, in the past).

Brakes : Mech disc brakes have come a long way too. I think my last mech disc brake was back in early 2000s Even these budget Mira now gives quite a good bit of stopping power. Most importantly-- rotors on this used bike ain't warped. Again all it took were minor adjustments to perfect things up.

Tires : It didn't come with the stock WTB as advertised on Marin website but instead with a pair of 1.75" Panaracer Gravel Kings. I consider these closer to road tires due to the smoothness of the thread and lack of grippy sideknobs than a true gravel/ off road rubber.. But GKs are known for holding decent speed on the roads.. Let's see....

By the way this is also my first 650B/ 27/5" bike. Having resisted when the entire world went 27.5" with MTB and stayed faithful to my 26ers.

Diameter wise, the 650B with 1.75 is similar to 700c on 28-35c but should give much better float and comfort.. But the question is how much will that have to be compensated for when trying to maintain speed on the tarmac? Surely it will feel "slower" than the Stanyan now?

There are still many questions and naggy thoughts on my mind at the beginning.. 

 "Zhng" Time

The bar I talked much about on the Stanyan-- has made it here too. The stock Marin 12 degree flare was ok but somehow I didn't like the bending at the hooks. While waiting for the new Controltech gravel riser... managed to find some matching SOMA bar tape right around the neighborhood when the whole world seems to be out of stock :).  I thought putting on the dropper would be easy enough.. Sure.. plonking a tube into another tube is not hard.. its the frigging tweaking with the lever which is simply not meant for drop bars.. .

Yes yes... 22.2mm , 24mm, 31.8mm.. all the diff diameters and diff clamp sizes. Something will always not fit and need some DIY. and for something that will fit nicely, I wasn't about to shell a 100 bucks USD.

 

To hack it all up... an after market lever with a clamp from a phone holder and a bit of Dremeling to fit a different sized screw later...

... with a little help from a wooden aromatherapy ball to improve the lever pressing ergonomics later... after an all out off road session as seen in pics below.

 TADA..........

Matching things to the hilt, I've even pulled out those super nice Berthoud Cycles bar end plugs gifted to me years ago. 

Everything just happen to go together color wise on this one...

Ok-- I'm trying to be "different" as usual... but as  always, form follows function and  it's all for practical purposes. A bell these days is indispensable especially since I'm zipping in and out on pavements and PCN on this bike. This is temporary until I can get my hands on the Knog Oi deluxe small later on.

 

 

 

And here is how it all fits nicely on the cockpit without excessive hand movements when hands are on the reach of the bar..

Ok time to ride...

 ... on a sidenote, was still contemplating on a mod that would involve panniers and racks that can be a  quick on/ quick off the bike depending on the mood of the day and a few other small blings.  

Ride Feel and summarizing...

Ok its not final-- latest change not shown here is going back to SPDs -these are simply more efficient pedaling over flats. Ironically I swapped out my spd to flats for riding mtb 12 years ago and thought I would never live to use SPD ever again! Yet in the world of gravel bikes where most are actually using flats-- I'm back on clipless.

Been a month and have put about 400km on it by now. including using it on my regular rabbit loops cardio training previously pulled by my Stanyan in the daily 1.33km x 20 laps. So it gives me a good idea how the 2 compares now. While I prefer the relatively stiffer feel of 700c wheels on the SOMA for a quicker spin up (and of course its also on 28c tires), the 1.75 Gravel King here isn't too shabby. But on long weekend rides up and down pavements and alternating with grass and road-- as it was intended of this bike, obviously that is where it shines over my singlespeed. 

Gravel? No problem of course-- pics above of ride at Chestnut and later in BT in full muddy splendour pretty much says its all doable though I did have to revert to my old XC ways of riding as opposed to my usual mtb bomb-away mode...

Niggles:  I don't like the front feel. The fork somehow translates some pretty harsh sensation. If there is one big dislike on this bike-- this is it. Maybe its just the combo with this tire or something. I can't really figure out. 

and the few "old" standards.. again the fork-- which runs on straight 1 1/8" steerer while most forks these days are tapered. This would make trying to swap to an after market fork even harder as most do not produce straight steerers these days ( I think...)

The other is QR-- While it works well enough but again it would have been great if Marin has put on through axle (TA) front and rear. Not many people go for QR now and if building a set of wheels, it would mean getting hubs that can have adapters that will take both QR and TA for future proofing and easy swap with other frames.

Having said-- even with these niggles, the Nicasio+ at its listed price point is still pretty attractive and yes it has been holding up to the rigors Im still putting it through.

State of things as itis now.. 17 May...   and putting back the rear rack it came with or maybe my Surly rack and add on 2 khaki colored canvas panniers?   Hmmm...

For now -- will just be riding the hell out of it. If I can be 90% happy with a cheap bike-- then transposing all the same numbers onto a dream custom build with a good builder would be the next probable course of action ;)