Merida Reacto Team-e

Built for pros and anyone who wants to go fast

A bike painted in Worldtour team colours had better put its money where its mouth is – especially when those colours are as bold as this Merida’s

Abike that comes painted up in Worldtour team colours needs to deliver the performance to match, and for the most part the Merida Reacto Team-e lives up to its colourful billing.

In truth, the paintjob on this bike most closely matches last year’s Bahrain Mclaren team colours. Since then, the team has morphed into Bahrain Victorious and the orange jerseys have changed to be mostly red. Still, the orange paintjob is attractive without being garish, and you’ll simply be going too fast for anyone to notice the now outdated ‘Bahrain Mclaren’ written along the top tube.

Speedy by design

The Reacto has always been Merida’s pure aero road bike, and in an age when many brands are blurring the lines between their lightweight and aero racers there is no doubt this latest version has both feet planted in the aero camp.

As well as the usual sharp angles and deep, aerodynamic tube profiles, the new version comes with fully integrated cabling inside a one-piece Vision Metron 5D ACR cockpit to keep the front end tidy and reduce drag. Plus it comes with fairly aggressive geometry.

The stack height of 571mm twinned with a reach of 400mm (size large, 56cm) puts this bike firmly in long and low territory with regards to the ride position. The integrated bar-stem is slammed onto the fork crown, which sits in a recess in the head tube – a new design that Merida says saves two watts. There’s no chance of adapting the position to be an upright cruiser, and to my mind the bike is all the better for it.

One of the biggest changes over the previous version is weight, with Merida claiming to have shaved an impressive 244g off the frame and fork. This brings the overall weight to 7.7kg for a size large, so it’s still no featherweight climber’s bike but nor is it resistant to going uphill.

Merida also says it has made improvements in comfort, but once again this is relative. A new carbon layup in the frame is claimed to provide vibration damping and a cutaway section in the seatpost adds further flex, but the bike’s overall stiffness means you’ll feel all but the smoothest roads. There is clearance for up to 30mm tyres, which could add a bit of extra cushioning, but really no one who buys this bike is looking for a comfy ride – it’s all about speed.

Lockdown restrictions ensured much of my testing was conducted in the post-1965 borders