video: A lap of Joel Anderson’s trails on the Marin Nail Trail 29’er

Any excuse …

We’d been waiting for an excuse to shoot another video with Joel since we teamed up with him to test the Corsair Konig. When our buddies at Marin asked us if we wanted to ride their new Nail Trail 7 29’er it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

We didn’t have the bike for long so we swiftly hit the road to meet up with Joel and sample his local Quantocks XC loop. You can check out the video above or learn more about the bike below.

Marin Nail Trail 7 29"
The Nail Trail 7 isn’t built like a tank … but is fun, tough and punches way above its weight. For the money, we’re super impressed.

The Nail Trail 7

The Marin Nail Trail 7 29″ is built as a bit of a do-it-all trail bike. Designed to be fun to ride with a short stem, wide bar, 1×11 and good angles without costing big-bike money. At £1500 for the complete bike it’s one of the best value hardtails that we can see out there at the moment and rides like a bike way above its price tag.

Joel is riding the 29″ Nail Trail 7. There’s a 27.5″ version of this bike for the same price and a more affordable Nail Trail 6 version that’s also available in both wheel sizes, costing £950.

The bike you can see here comes with a 120mm Rock Shox Yari Fork, Shimano 1×11 drive train, a Trans-X dropper post and various Marin own-name bits that do a fine job whilst keeping the price sensible.

Tougher than she looks

The only thing we swapped were the tyres, which come out the box as a Schwalbe Racing Ralph/Nobby Nic combo. They were swiftly ejected for a more puncture-proof Maxxis High Roller combo. Really impressive were the Marin Double Wall wheels which we were a bit dubious about given Joel’s track record … but they held up really nicely.

We’ll admit that we weren’t sure how well the bike would stand up to Joel’s riding. It’s clearly aimed as an affordable bit of kit and doesn’t scream “overbuilt”.

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Joel didn’t hold back one bit and was hammering corners flat-out and sending gaps all day long. The bike, its wheels, its welds and its components all came away unflustered.

We can’t vouch for long term durability after just a first ride  … but so far, we’re really impressed.

Marin Nail Trail 7 jumping at Triscombe.
Joel and crew’s new trail has some pretty dirty gaps in ’em … Everything features a pretty hard do-or-die landing that you don’t want to miss!

Joel’s version of XC

Given the bike’s singletrack genetics Joel opted for a lap of his local XC ride for our test ride. The loop starts from his front door and takes in some flat out gallops across the moors, lightning fast descents and finally drops into his backyard downhill trails. We checked out his new berms-and-jumps trail before dropping back down to his house for a cuppa and some cake.

The ride is set in the Quantocks and takes in some classic West Country descents. We couldn’t tell you the exact route (we were too busy trying to keep up with Joel!) but MoreDirt’s very gruesomely named “Dead Woman’s Ditch ride” should give you some hints.

Quantocks mountain biking on the Marin Nail Trail

Great ride, great cake.

The whole ride could be done in less than two hours or made into a big day out and was absolutely bloody brilliant. There were a few gaps that we stayed clear off on our full suss trail bikes, but Joel hit everything on the Nail Trail without any bother what so ever. Pretty impressive for a bike that costs half the price of what we’ve teamed Joel up with previously!

Cheers to Marin for loaning Joel the bike and to the man himself for showing us round his local loop.  

If you’ve got a great local ride you’d like to share for our next bike… why not give us a shout?

You can learn more about the Marin Nail Trail 7 over on the Marin website.

Joel Anderson Marin Nail Trail 7 and a cuppa
Cheers Joel – great ride and great cake. See you again next weekend?

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