Merida’s eOne-Eighty ebike is a serious unit. 180mm travel, Mullet wheels, 85Nm Bosch CX motor and a fair old chunk of weight.
After a shaky start, the Merida eOne-Eighty 700 defied the numbers to be a great daily driver for missions of any kind.
Key features:
- Rockshox Zeb Select 180mm fork
- Rockshox Vivid Select shock
- SRAM GX Eagle 12-speed drive
- Bosch CX Performance Line motor
- Bosch Powertube 800Wh battery
- SRAM DB4 brakes
- Merida Expert TR II rims on Shimano TC500 hubs
- Merida Team TR II dropper
- £6,500.00 RRP
- Merida-Bikes.com
Geometry
The Merida eOne-Eighty is available in XShort, Short, Mid, Long and XLong.
Reach on the Mid is 460mm with a seat tube of 425mm. Head angle is 64.5 degrees with a seat tube angle of 78.5 degrees. Chainstays are 435mm across the sizes with the wheelbase on the mid of 1245mm.
The 700 model of the eOne-Eighty comes with Rockshox Zeb and Vivid dampers, both in the Select flavour. Power is provided by a Bosch Performance Line CX motor with 85Nm on tap. This is fed by an 800Wh Bosch Powertube battery. Drivetrain comes in the form of a mechanical SRAM GX 12-speed setup, the brakes too are SRAM, DB8s in this case with HS2 rotors for better power and cooling. Wheels and finishing kit are all Merida’s own and are solid, reliable units.
A higher than average stack height and short-ish reach on the eOne-Eighty is aimed at the kind of riding most riders will do on this bike. Riding where big reach isn’t critical as the bike is just so planted. I managed to get the bike feeling far more nimble than at the launch in Girona, mostly thanks to the help of Merida’s Scottish legend, James Scott.
As the speed rose, the bike came into its own. The Bosch motor happily spurting out 85Nm all day with that big lump of a battery fuelling it. At no point did I feel the need to consider a range extender as I am the king of overall system weight, coming in at about 85kg with both bike and body.
Suspension running soft and fast gave the bike a smooth plough through even the roughest of trails, with the Rockshox dampers doing sterling work when called upon, although the fork did feel slightly overwhelmed when pushed hard into multiple, successive big hits. The Vivid Air remains one of my favourite shocks on the market and simply goes about its business.
Once up to speed the eOne-Eighty is surprisingly nimble, just requiring a bit of forward planning if you’re going to try a natural gap on a trail. The momentum you carry in these instances instead of keeping the wheels on the deck is considerable and will ask everything of the SRAM DB8 brakes to reel in.
A fast, heavy bike will naturally expose any weak spots, and it is with the anchors that we begin. On shorter trails at home, the DB8s with HS2 rotors are ample, but once the trails get longer and faster, they do start to feel a little undergunned. They’re not bad by any means, but they do get hot and start to fade when pushed. A potent set of brakes, like a set of Hope Tech 4 numbers would suit this bike to a T and give you more scope for charging hard.
On any other bike, the Double Down rear/EXO+ front tyres would be more than enough. In fact, for any non-ebike, this would be my go-to setup. On the eOne-Eighty though, I feel that a DH and DD casing arrangement would be far more beneficial and a few more grams would go unnoticed, especially if the bike had the 100Nm motor update. I killed the rear tyre in Lenzerheide, something which would have been a harder task indeed with the full DH casing.
What do we think?
Although tricky to set up at the start, the Merida eOne-Eighty 700 showed its true colours once we’d got there. For the money, there’s not many ebikes out there that are this capable and it became a trusty sidekick for many missions big and small. It’s a proper set of brakes and a rear tyre away from being an absolute banger.
We love:
- All-day endurance
- Dialled suspension
- Great value
Could do better:
- It’s a heavy unit
- Brakes can get overwhelmed
- Rear tyre needs beefed up
