A review of the Marin Bikes Larkspur 2, a unique step-through, all terrain bike that's ready for all of the city or dirt action you give it!
was born in 1986 by Bob Buckley in, you guessed it, Marin County, California. In the early days, Mountain Bike Hall of Famer, Joe Murray helped Bob with product design. Working together, Marin designed and sold their first bike, The Madrone Trail, a $199 mountain bike. A decade later, in 1996, they went on to be the first bike company to win the XC National Championship on a full-suspension bike.
Step-through frames are the dominant frame of choice for most urban cyclists on a global scale. But here, Marin has done something different with the Larkspur frame. With its unique step-through frame, the Larkspur 2 offers a visible difference from most modern step-throughs that I’ve seen lately. The Fork is also CrMo with a curved blade and is disc specific. It has fender and rack eyelets. It is QR-specific and spaced at 100mm.
Drivetrain duties are handled by a wide-range Shimano Deore 1×11 rear shifter and clutched rear derailleur, with a generic, non-branded forged alloy crank using a narrow-wide 38t chainring. The rear 11-51t, 11-speed cassette is by SunRace.Shimano Deore hydraulic brakesBoth front and rear brakes are Shimano Deore hydraulic with a 160mm rear rotor and a 180mm front rotor.I ordered the bike in the biggest size available, the size large.
With the wide range mountain bike gearing and a 20.5 gear inch granny, this bike was very pleasant to trudge uphill. On one of my favorite trails, there is an exposed root section that can be challenging. I usually need to attack it seated while pulling the front wheel up and over the obstacles. On the trail mentioned and others that were similar, I found the seat post feeling a little flexy at times.