Gary Fisher Marline frame -- What now?
 

I was recently in a accident in which my fairly new Gary Fisher Marlin (2004, maybe? I can't find the info from when it was purchased) was crushed by an SUV. The frame snapped in several places. I know very little about bikes, but I understand that this was a pretty good one, at least for my purposes. I was commuting to school, frequently taking it on and off trains. I loved how light it was. I liked it a lot, so I was excited find and purchase an older looking Marlin frame on ebay. It cost me about $61.00 including the shipping. I'm waiting for it to arrive. Here's the bid: http://www.ebay.com/itm/220891661214...84.m1439.l2649

Anyway, now I have a number of questions. I'll just list them.

(1) Looking at the pictures from the ebay bid, can anyone tell how old it is or if there are any obvious problems?

(2) Was this a stupid purchase? I'm won't lie, it was sort of an impulse buy.

(3) When the frame arrives, how do I know if its "good"? Are their obvious signs to tell if there are problems or its been repaired in the past?

(4) Will it be easy to find the rest of the parts for a complete bike?

(5) What are the rest of the parts I need to buy? What sort of cost am I looking at?

(6) Is it likely that I'll be able to use parts off my destroyed (probably much newer) Marlin and use them on this frame?

(7) Using this frame is there potential to make this bike comparable to my destroyed one?

I'll probably add more questions as I think of them. Thank you to anyone who takes the time to help me out.

- Brad

Specs & Photo.

This is going to be a long post, whew!

1997 Gary Fisher Marlin: http://www.bikepedia.com/quickbike/B...rlin&Type=bike

Well, I wouldn't say it was a great buy... All you got was a bare frame and a crankset. If you search craigslist you could probably find a similar bike COMPLETE for $75.

Just obvious dents or cracks. This I wouldn't worry about.

Maybe, but it will be expensive. Putting together a bike from a bare frame is by far the most expensive way to do it. You would've been much better off buying a complete bike and riding it as-is.

Which brings me to - the Marlin is certainly a nice bike, but fairly low end (nothing special.) You could probably replace it with something comparable for less than $150. How much is left of your wrecked Marlin? Many components may transfer over, but many others may not depending on what you've got. Things like the front derailer, seatpost, and possibly even the fork. It really sucks the bike you bought doesn't have a fork. It wasn't a good deal to begin with but it's definitely a deal killer now. Unless you can swap over almost all of the components from your other bike just cut your losses and buy something complete. The Marlin isn't a special enough bike to be worthwhile building up from the bare frame.

For example, something like this aluminum Cannondale: http://appleton.craigslist.org/bik/2675475370.html

Been sitting on craigslist for MONTHS even at such a low price. I'm still tempted to grab it, if only for the old Deore DX/LX.

Too bad it doesn't have DX thumbshifters. Those alone go for $40 on ebay.

That is a pretty tempting pickup. It's got a paintjob only a mother could love, that's why it's still up. Also seems like northern states hate MTBs. I dunno why. There's a NICE Bianchi MTB that's been up on our CL for a week for $40. Seems like it should be gone within a day at that price.