Marin San Rafael
Marin San Rafael 1
So you’re indecisive. Or not.
You want a mountain bike for riding on trails in the Grand Forest. No. You want a road bike so you can ride Seattle-to-Portland. No, that’s not right either. You plan on bike commuting to work during the week, and doing some touring and camping on the weekend. On gravel roads. Or maybe you’ll start doing triathlons.
You just want a bike. Is that so hard?
If you can’t make up your mind, and want just one bike to handle everything, Marin has you covered with their San Rafael and San Anselmo series of bikes. Staring around $500 with the San Rafael 1 (Diamond frame style) or San Anselmo 1 (low step-over frame) models, with versions going up to around $900, Marin gives you a broad range of bikes that do nothing exceptionally well but aren’t too bad at anything either.
San Anselmo 2
Aboard Dual Sport bikes like these you’ll likely get dropped by road bikers and mountain bikers alike, but you’ll probably still have more fun than they will while trying to keep up.
The thing to remember is that you can quickly ride on the roads to the gravel trailhead (while your mountain biker friends will probably opt to drive there) and your road-bike riding friends won’t be able to follow you onto the dirt.