Quote Originally Posted by Catriona View Post
haha. My marin is awesome! I will attempt to forgive you and not take offense on behalf of it. It's not bottom of the line, it came with shimano wheels and a carbon fiber crankset. I think cranks & wheels are usually made by a 3rd party on bikes.

I'm not sure what you mean by tilt the crankset - as in, the bottom bracket twists or just the crank arm flexes... if that's a problem with the bike or the frame. If it's the crank that's flexing, that's easily upgradeable and that's why a lot of people upgrade their cranks - ultegra cranks are stiffer than 105, and dura ace or carbon cranks stiffer than that. I can't say that I notice a difference, but I've read threads where they compare shimano 105 cranks to noodles. It just depends on your leg strength and how much power you have and I apparently don't have enough to notice 105 cranks as noodles.

If the entire bottom bracket is flexing or tilting and it's the frame - he may need a bike with one of those massive tubes on the bottom bracket

As for wheels - I do see those complaints fairly common on wheel reviews across the net - light people loving such & such wheel vs. heavier guys hating them. He should maybe look into a touring set or something for cyclocross.
As far as what was bending, I don't think it was just the crank arm; he claims you could see a change in angle of the chainring. I never saw it in action and he doesn't have the bike anymore so I can't describe it any more detail unfortunately.

So anyway, I'll bring this back around to the OP: Softie mentions in her first post that she'd like to avoid having to make immediate upgrades on a new bike to make it appropriate to her size and strength. I'm just sayin' that my boyfriend's stock Marin from the low end of their bike spectrum (based on you having carbon-fiber-anything, I'd say your bike is quite a bit higher on their food chain ) was not appropriate to his (similar) size and strength. Rather than having to change out the wheels, the brakes, AND try to do something about the flexing, he sold it to a much smaller guy, got a cyclocross bike, and has a blast.

Please tell your bike I didn't mean to hurt its feelings.

Softie, I hope I haven't dragged your thread around too much--I'm not trying to tell you to count out Marin, they really do seem to make lovely bikes overall. But, that one just didn't work out for my guy, and since he is of such a similar size to you I thought it was worth bringing up.