The $200 Trek Marlin KILLER (Kent Trouvaille vs Trek Marlin Comparison)

In this video I'm going to show you that this bike I bought at my local Walmart for only $200 is a better mountain bike than any big brand bike like the Trek Marlin Giant Talon or the specialized Rockhopper. Hello everyone and welcome. Back to the channel, my name is Lollipop and this is Kent True Veil and it's a bike commonly found at Walmart, which means it's much more affordable than bikes from big bike brands like Track Specialized and Giant now, before click, there are usually bikes from Walmart. They are much cheaper than bicycles from brands like Tre or specialized ones;

However, in 2024 that no longer means they are of lower quality. Now many popular channels on YouTube have already reviewed this bike in great detail, such as cev Central and the Burn Peak channels which I love and watch. very regularly, so I'm not going to try to repeat a lot of the wonderful things you've already said in your reviews, but what I will do is actually the main thing I do on my channel, which is a

comparison

, so I have Mi Tre Marlin 5 is here and I personally have about four Tre Marlins so I love them and we're basically going to go over all the major details of both bikes so you can see the similarities and differences here in person and then I can talk about each component and what that means for you as a buyer in terms of value, as well as for a rider on the trail or on the road, but before we get into that, some of you may be wondering: this bike is still $400 on Walmart's website, what is happening?

I recently went to my local Walmart in Sacramento, California hoping to purchase some milk and an audio cable as Walmart has both items and passed by the bike section where I now noticed the real Velo. I said this bike typically sells for $399, which means it's about $200 less than a decent quality $600 Tre Marlin 5 Gen 2 2023 and that's actually the retail price of the Marlin, so there you go. okay and all, but I didn't really think much about it. I thought so, it's a little cheaper, but with Trek and specializing in these types of bikes you get a very nice bike with some good parts and a good warranty, so it's a bit of a trade-off, nothing like the Sparkles bike, but while I was passing by these bicycles and saw something I couldn't believe.

This bike is currently on sale for €199, literally half price and that is the most ridiculous deal I have ever seen on a bike product in my entire life. This deal was so good that I had to buy the bike right away so I could see for myself how good this bike is compared to the Marlins I've been riding for the last 3 years, but jumping to the

comparison

is the first thing with what we have to start. The purchasing process for each bike is part of the reason Tre Marlin costs so much more because you can only buy a Trek Marlin from an authorized Tre dealer bike shop, where the bike is professionally assembled by service technicians and everything is checked for you.

You can also try out the bike, get free service at some stores, and try out many more bikes and bike accessories at Walmart. It's like buying anything else at a department store. You walk in, pick up the item, take it to the register or in my case, an employee brings it to the register for you and you purchase it in the checkout line as if you were purchasing any of your other groceries. It's a bit of a strange feeling buying a bike this way but it's pretty simple, what's not so simple is making sure the bike you get has been assembled correctly by generic Walmart employees who aren't exactly trained bike technicians. and that's not their fault, but as you can see here, I made sure to look at each bike before selecting mine, since I caught a few.

There are some pretty major issues here, look it's not even about losing the quick release axle, the abyss loaded the bike, it's raining so hard that unfortunately I didn't get much footage and when I got home with the bike I took off all the gear. packaging and then made sure to do a more thorough check and noticed that the stem wasn't properly aligned with the front wheel, the handlebars weren't centered, the stem bolts weren't really tightened correctly, or the disc brakes were rubbing against the brake . pads and causing some noise, the transmission needed some adjustment to shift properly and the tires needed inflated a bit, so overall there were a lot of things that were definitely not set up ideally on this bike and could be a bit It's hard to do it on your own if you don't have the experience and honestly it seems like a lot but all this maintenance wasn't absolutely necessary, although it makes the bike safer, more comfortable and better to ride, but leaving aside the experience in the bike shop and having to tune the entire bike yourself, the main difference between these two bikes lies in their parts, starting with the bike frame.

I'll focus on the mid-sized Tre Marlin and the mid-sized Kent true Veil. The Tre Marlin is made from an aluminum alloy, has pretty smooth looking welds and overall looks pretty good in my opinion, it has internal cable routing mounts for a rear rack and kickstand and, Of course, the Marlin logo for the real Veil, this frame actually has all of those same features, but on top of that, it comes with a nice kickstand to hold your bike up, so you don't have to buy it separately, and It has an additional feature which is a hole in the back of the seat tube that allows you to install it. an internally routed dropper seatpost which, for those who don't know, is a type of seatpost that can be moved up and down by pressing a lever on the handlebar and is a great upgrade for mountain biking , as it allows you to get lower on the bike to achieve better balance while riding on difficult terrain, the trick Marlin Gen 2 bikes do not have this option.

Also, the tril has a tapered head tube, which is also crazy for a bike that cost me $200, uh, the cheapest bike that What you can get at Trek with a flanged head tube is about $ 1,200, but essentially what it is is a much stronger front head tube and it is widened to make the bike fit stronger, higher-end suspension forks, so you have plenty of room to improve the performance of this bike. suspension and use it for a long time as you progress in your mountain biking skills. I'll also show a table here with some of the key details of the frame geometry and you can see here that the tril has a slacker head tube angle than the Marlin and a steeper SE tube angle, which means it's much more stable when riding downhill and more efficient when riding uphill, so overall a big improvement over the Marlin gen2 frame, but now let's go over some of these components, so first.

We have the suspension fork up front, so my Marlin here has a Sr Suntour xce 28 fork, uh, but the new Marlin 5 comes with a slightly better XC T30 fork. At work here is an XC m30 srour fork, so overall they are pretty similar. They are made by the same company and have 30mm wide top brackets for a decent amount of strength and both have a lockout on the top right so you can twist it and make the fork completely rigid to go faster on the road or in flat areas. so there's not much difference and similarly with the wheels the Marlin comes with aluminum rims and these Bond trigger tires that are 2.2 inches wide and a decent tread pattern that's better suited for lighter trails and CrossCountry, the travail looks quite similar. aluminum wheels, but it has tires from the CST brand, which is the parent company of Maxis, and these tires have a more aggressive tread pattern that is a little better for riding on rougher trails and are wider, 2.4 inches , which in my opinion is a perfect width for the entrance. top-level mountain bikes, as you get a great amount of stability and traction.

Next we have the handlebars and stem, these are pretty similar for both bikes but I will mention that the tril has a shorter stem than the Marlin by 10-20mm meaning the tril has a more upright seating position than the Marlin. It's better for trail riding since you don't lean forward as much. Additionally, the Marlin has 720mm wide handlebars while the Trava goes up to 760mm wide and that gives the Kent bike better control when turning it on. narrow trails and this width is more standard for trail bikes nowadays, as well as for the saddle and seatpost, the Marlin has a wider seatpost as it is 31.1.6mm wide, while The tril has a 30.4mm wide seatpost, so the Marlin post is stronger and easier to upgrade as it's a more standard size, but it's not a big deal overall, on my opinion, the seat on the travail looks great and is definitely more comfortable than the Bont Arvy trigger on the Marlins, okay, but now let's talk brakes.

In this case the track surpasses the Kent since the Marlin comes with hydraulic disc brakes from the Tekro brand while the Travil has mechanical disc brakes from the Pro Max brand. Hydraulic disc brakes have much more stopping power than mechanical disc brakes and they work. better in all weather conditions, both bikes come with a 180mm brake rotor at the front for 2023 and a 160mm rotor at the rear, so no difference. However, I will mention that the Tre Marlin 4D which currently costs $500 comes with mechanical disc brakes. but that bike is much less common to find in a bike shop, so I'm comparing the Marlin 5 and finally let's go over the drivetrains.

The Marlin for 2023 comes with a primarily Shimano alus level drivetrain that has two gears on the front crank. set and eight gears on the rear cassette for a total of 16 speeds to choose from while riding. This is a decent drivetrain that works great for road riding and commuting, but tends to malfunction a bit more while mountain biking. Mainly Microshift brand transmission which has one gear in the front and nine gears in the cassette for a total of nine speeds. This drivetrain is better as having just one gear in the front is pretty much the standard for mountain bikes these days as it eliminates the front end. which is a part that can malfunction often on the trail and a 9 speed transmission is completely fine for beginner trail and short road riders, the Marlin has more options and gears but that also makes it heavier and more susceptible to failure and requiring more maintenance.

On top of that, the travail drivetrain is pretty similar to the drivetrain you get on the new 2024 Marlin 5 gen 3 trk bike, which costs around $700, so it's more than triple the amount I paid for the

kent

ra veil and Lastly, I want to mention the weight of each bike, so the Marlin track in a size medium weighs about 31 pounds, well the K travil actually weighs a little more, about 33 pounds, so you don't really get Too much weight savings with that transmission, I guess so. I can clearly say that the Travil has an incredible amount of great features compared to a bike like the Trek Marlin and also these specialized rock copper and giant chalen bikes have similar measurements and parts to the trail, so it really is Kent bike beats the other three. bicycles at a much more affordable price.

I'm not going to say that the Kent will always outperform the Trek; You may like the look of the Marlin better and prefer the quality and legacy behind the TX name and brand and all the research and development. that I put on this bike and get their warranty and level of service, but honestly I would rather save money, buy a cheaper bike to start with and upgrade the parts as needed or just upgrade the entire bike in the future since I saved so much money and I can learn with this bike and get what I really want in the future if it's not this bike, but even then upgrading this Kent bike would be much easier and faster than upgrading the Trek Marlin since you already have more features like the tube conical steering. uh the internal dropper routes one per transmission and most of the parts on this bike don't even need to be upgraded to have a good riding experience on this bike.

It's completely up to you what you think is a better bike for Both bikes are going to be great on the road and trail so you can't go wrong, but if it was and is my money I'll go with the real Veil. I still love theclue, but this one is It's crazy, especially for $200, but even for $400, it's a winner for sure. Let me know what you think of this video and please tell me if I made any mistakes and I'll try to fix them in the comments section below. but other than that, I hope you all have a wonderful day today and remember to keep riding your bike.