PEDAL, POINT & SHOOT

VALUE AND VERSATILITY: THE NEW MERIDA ONE SIXTY 5000 IS A CONFIDENT PERFORMER.

While Merida are extremely established in the world of XCO and endurance racing, with Olympic and World Champs titles to their name, they’re relatively new to the trail and enduro markets; but on this evidence, they’re set to stick around.

At a recommended retail price of

R59 999, the Merida ONE SIXTY 5000 is a carbon front triangle mated to an aluminium-rear-end frame, and is sleek and sassy in appearance. A ‘Float Link’ rear suspension system with a vertically mounted shock drives the single-pivot design, and none of the manufacturing appears over-designed or over-built.

In fact, we’d say it’s rather functional and sleek in appearance, with well-thoughtout, minimalist engineering on the rear alloy section. Very much on trend are the deep, sloping top tube (providing ample stand-over), a steepish seat angle to assist climbing, and a short seat tube.

Complete with RockShox Yari RC 170mm air fork, RockShox Super Deluxe R rear shock, 1x-drivetrain-specific frame design, Shimano stoppers, Maxxis Minion DHR2 rubber and a short stem, this bike is ready to be raced straight from the showroom.

At 1.74m tall, our test rider opted for a size medium, which has a reach of 445mm and a wheelbase of 1 201mm. The other geometrics worth noting are the head angle of 65.3 degrees, a low BB height of 344mm, and chainstays on the shorter side, at 430mm, which are all cutting-edge.

GOOD COMBINATION

On to the trail; and the first thing we noticed is that the numbers combine well, enabling the rider to assume the attack position comfortably, with ample room to move about. Once we’d settled on the optimal suspension set-up – fork at 75psi, rear shock at 150psi, and tyres 26psi rear and 23psi front – we could really start to charge the trail aggressively. And the Merida responded well, obliging every request we made of it.

In the turns, we immediately noticed