The story: I had decided that I wanted a mountain bike (living in the Bay Area, there are so many opportunities to ride in dirt, and I was tired of missing out). So for the most part, I was surfing craigslist seeing if there was anything I liked. Finally, I started looking on well-known MTB manufacturers product lines: Kona, Santa Cruz, Giant, Marin…

I searched Marin, and saw this bike, and absolutely fell in love with it. I knew that I needed it. I had to call about eight shops in the bay area that stocked Marins. Finally one shop (Freewheel Cyclery on Valencia St. in San Francisco) could get a hold of one of five unclaimed pink Bear Valleys that were in a shipment on the way to the East coast, which I immediately put down my deposit on.

I have loved it ever since I got it: riding it at China Camp Regional park single track in Marin County, CA, Granite Bay near Sacramento, and just for fun at the radio telescope that I work at: in the White Mountains in central California. I bought this Marin Bear Valley pink hardtail in 2007. It’s a 15″ with pretty standard components (Deore and Acera), but I’ve upgraded the headset to a pewter Chris King, fork to a Fox TALAS, and the handlebars to Holzfellers. And of course, the pedals were upgraded to PINK Crank Bros. Candies!

I will upgrade the other parts as they begin to break (a.k.a. I begin to tackle more rocky/technical terrain, thus falling down enough to break things…)