The base model Gestalt 1 gravel machine comes with a Shimano Sora drivetrain and cable disc brakes for £800 - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
The Gestalt 2 also has a 1x drivetrain using a mix of a SRAM Apex shifter and a mountain bike X7 rear mech - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
The Gestalt 3 runs SRAM Rival 1 with an XD drive rear freehub allowing for a massive 10-42 cassette - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
The Gestalt 3's front end features this coooling fin disc mount called Ice-It from US brand Nail'd - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
Nail'd's Loc-It thru' axles system is used both front and rear on the Gestalt 3 - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
The Gestalt 3 has a super wide 10-42 11-speed rear cassette - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
The SRAM X-7 mountain bike rear mech is used on the Gestalt 2's 1 drivetrain - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
The Gestalt 2's 1x shifting is driven by a SRAM Apex - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
We like the look of Schwalbe's new G-One gravel tyre as found on the Gestalt range - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
Marin's Cortina T3 CX pro is its range-topping cyclocross race machine at £3,500 - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
The Cortina T3 CX Pro uses SRAM's new Force 1 1x drivetrain - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
Impressive clearances both front and rear on the Cortina CX - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
Stan's tubeless ready Grail rims are fitted to the new Cortina CX… - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
… along with classic Continental 35c cyclocross tyres - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
The Cortina T3 CX pro is completed with some classy Zipp Service course SL components - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
The Cortina also gets Naild's Ice-It cooling finned disc mount and Nav-It carbon fork - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
Marin is celebrating its 30th year and to mark the occasion it'll be launching a range of 'heritage' models, including this Four Corners steel touring machine. At £700, it's aimed at the growing 'adventure' market so has big tyre clearances and disc brakes - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
Among the new Hybrid range is this simple, neat and stylish Fairfax SC4 belt drive bike at £900 - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
We also liked the SRAM 1x equipped Fairfax SC5 at £1,000 - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
The SRAM XS 1x drivetrain on the SC5 should keep commuting nice and simple - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
Marin's Argenta Comp offers a nicely designed aluminium frame and Shimano Sora for £650 - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
As if to prove a point the guys at Paligap dissapeared with the Gestalt 2 only to return it in full-on tourer/commuter trim - Warren Rossiter/Immediate Media
We got a first glance of Marin’s new Gestalt line at last week's Eurobike media preview show thanks to Marin’s UK distributor Paligap.
So first things first, Gestalt doesn’t sound very Marin County does it? Aaron Abrams from Marin bikes explained the reasoning behind the Germanic moniker: "The Gestalt is named after a famous bar in Marin County that’s a meeting place for local riders. Aside from having 40-plus hooks to hang bikes they have 25 taps of the best micro-brewery craft ales. So it’s where everyone meets post-ride, be it mountain bikers, roadies or whoever. So we named our new bike after it. That and Gestalt is the German word for form, and this bike's a new form of road bike."
The Gestalt range consists of three models. The base model Gestalt 1 comes equipped with Shimano Sora, combining a standard compact chainset and wide cassette. At £800 the bike shares the same road bike-derived geometry as the rest of the range. It combines a 72.5 head angle with a fork featuring a 48mm offset and 415mm chainstays. Aaron told us that means the Gestalt handles with much more snap like a road bike should rather than the more relaxed nature of a road bike derived from a CX chassis. All of the frames come with huge tyre clearances (they ship with 30c tyres) and mounts for a rear rack, and guards front and rear. We’d expect to see plenty of Gestalts put into service as a commuting machine or a very capable adventure-touring bike.
The base model gestalt 3 gravel machine comes with a shimano sora drivetrain, and cable disc brakes for £800:
Marin's £800 Gestalt 1
The Gestalt 2 at £1,000 gets a 1x drivetrain. Cleverly to keep costs down Marin hasn’t gone down the route of SRAM’s new 1x road specific group. Instead it's combined a SRAM Apex shifter with a mountain bike SRAM X7 rear mech.
The gestalt 2 also has a 1x drivetrain using a mix of a sram apex shifter and a x7 rear mech from the mountain bike group:
Marin's £1,000 Gestalt 2
The range-topping Gestalt 3 at £1,750 gets a few interesting additions. Aside from the new Rival 1 group running a 42t chainring paired with an XD drive 10-42 rear cassette, it comes with front-end upgrades from a new US-based component company Naild (www.naild.it – nailed it. Gettit?). This consists of the new carbon Nav-it fork, which is designed to work with the oh-so-clever Loc-It thru-axle system and the huge cooling fin disc mount (Ice-It). The Loc-it axles have a unique locking quick release system called 12-3-9, so-called because to lock you insert the lever in at the 12 o’clock position, turn to 3, then flip the lever over to 9 to close it and it locks itself in place. It’s a neat, fast and intuitive system that can also be found on Marin’s new top-end CX bikes.
The gestalt 3 runs sram rival 1 with an xd drive rear freehub allowing for a massive 10-42 cassette:
The range-topping £1,750 Gestalt 3
For closer details of the Gestalt range and a look at Marin's new cyclocross and road models check out the gallery at the top.
Warren is our senior technical editor for road and gravel. With 27 years of experience, he’s been testing bikes since before BikeRadar and the internet existed!
With an encyclopedic knowledge of bikes and what some would consider an excessive bike collection, Warren has been the mastermind behind our road Bike of the Year tests for over a decade. He has penned more than 2,750 bike tests.
His words have been published in Cycling Plus, Bikeradar, Mountain Biking UK, What Mountain Bike, Urban Cyclist, Procycling, Cycling News, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, T3 and a whole host of other publications. You’ll also find Warren as a regular on the BikeRadar Podcast and our YouTube channel.
He’s covered all the 21st-century innovations in cycling and ridden in Europe, Asia, Australasia, America and Africa. He’s been a judge for the Eurobike awards and judged handmade bikes at Bespoked.
Height: 6’2”/188cm
Bike size:58cm/L/XL
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