The Murmur is Starling's staple trail bike known for its steel frame and simplicity. The brand has been busy bringing its V3 upgrades and beefing up the travel with the Mega-Murmur. However, Starling has gone the other way and kitted the Mini-Murmur with 120mm and cross-country tyres, positioning the bike nicely into the downcountry segment.

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The Mini-Murmur is the product of Starling's founder, Joe's love for deliberately under-biking himself. For Joe, it's all about the challenge of negotiating a short-travelled bike shod with tyres of minimal tread and reaping the rewards of an engaging ride that doesn't need the gnarliest or steepest of terrain to be ultimate fun.

Starling also says that the Mini-Murmur is about versatility claiming it's equally as strong up a hill as it is down and made for big-distance epics. The brand goes on to say the new bike makes another entry into the world of Starling.

2024 starling mini murmur s frame.jpg, by Liam Mercer

As a Starling bike, it gets everything we've come to expect including a hand-made, Reynolds 853 heat-treated steel frame equipped with a simple single-pivot suspension platform. The rear end is made by ORA in Taiwan using heat-treated Chromoly.

The bike is sorted with a UDH dropout for easy mech hanger replacement and T-Type compatibility and it gets everything that's come as part of the brand's V3 package. But then if owners wanted to take full advantage of the Starling ecosystem, the shock and fork can be swapped to convert the Mini-Murmur to a regular Murmur or swap the rear end to change it to a Twist or Mega-Murmur.

2024 starling mini murmur s shock.jpg, by Liam Mercer

Although the Mini-Murmur uses the same frame as the full-fat Murmur, the smaller travelled suspension fork has changed the geometry – and Starling says that it's more suitable for the task at hand. With that, a large size gets a 495mm reach, a 66.2-degree head tube angle, a 445mm chainstay and a 79.2-degree effective seat tube angle. There are five sizes available from medium to XXL including a longer medium plus size. These cover rider heights from 5'6" up to 6'8". Of course, as a cross/down-country bike, it rolls on 29-inch wheels.

Starling is then doing something slightly different with this bike when it comes to the build kit. Instead of offering semi-custom options, where customers can pick from a bank of componentry, Mini-Murmurs will be available in frame-only or a single full-build option and with that full-build option, Starling isn't hanging about.

For £7,650, you'll get a Mini-Murmur equipped with DT Swiss suspension with a F232 One fork at the front, with 120mm of suspension and the R535 shock. Covering shifting is Shimano's XT drivetrain which drives a pair of DT Swiss XMC 1501 carbon hoops. Those are wrapped with Michelin's Wild XC tyres. 

2024 starling mini murmur s brake.jpg, by Liam Mercer

The rest of the build comes from Hope with a pair of XCR four-piston brakes, the brand's new TR stem and Carbon cranks. Renthal supplies the Fatbar Lite handlebar and Bike Yoke sorted the Divine dropper post.

That money includes a seven-year warranty against manufacturing defects and a crash replacement service that covers crash damage. All that's required is for you to pay the postage and Starling will sort the rest. This coversndented tubes, broken tabs and brackets, and even flared head tubes. Non-original owners or bikes outside the warranty will incur a cost for the work.

2024 starling mini murmur s front.jpg, by Liam Mercer

The Starling Mini-Murmur comes in three options, a frame without a shock for £2,150, a frame with the DT Swiss shock for £2,549 and the complete bike for £7,650.

For those wanting to know more about how the bike rides, we met with Starling in the Forest of Dean for the Starling Mini-Murmur first ride review.

• www.starlingcycles.com

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