Last seen in autumn of last year on these pages, Pete was a big fan of the Merida eOne-Sixty SL 8000 when he tested it in Catalonia and was keen to try it out at home.
Can half a year with Merida’s light weight ebike prove the promising start from the launch in Girona? Pete weighs in with his full review after a long winter of riding.
Photos by Pete Scullion.
Key features:
- Rockshox Lyrik Select+ 160mm fork
- Rockshox Super Deluxe Select+ shock
- SRAM GX AXS T-type 12-speed drive
- Bosch Performance Line SX motor
- Bosch CompactTube 400Wh battery
- SRAM DB8 brakes
- DT Swiss HX1700 wheels
- Merida Comp TR III dropper
- £7,500.00 RRP
- Merida-Bikes.com
Geometry
The Merida eOneSixty SL is available in XShort, Short, Mid, Long and XLong.
Reach on the Mid is 466mm with a seat tube of 425mm. Head angle is 64 degrees with a seat tube angle of 78.5 degrees. Chainstays are 450mm across the sizes with a wheelbase on the Mid of 1253mm.
The Merida eOne-Sixty SL is a direct, motorised version of the analoguebike One-Sixty. Essentially this is an enduro bike with ebike tuned kinematics and a lightweight motor and battery.
With the eOne-Sixty SL, however, Merida have attempted to make this a lighter weight option, rather than just bolting a motor and battery to an existing enduro bike. This is evident with certain spec choices, like a Lyrik chosen over a Zeb, EXO+ casing tyres and a non height adjustable dropper.
A full carbon fibre CFIII frame offering up 160mm travel via 29″ wheels, a flip chip offers the option to run Mullet but Merida are adamant this rides better as a full 29er. You get a 400Wh battery, with Bosch’s 250Wh range extender is an option for longer rides. Power is provided by a 55Nm Bosch Performance Line SX motor.
Three models carbon fibre framed of Merida eOne-Sixty SL are available, with the range being topped by the eOne-Sixty SL 10000, the eOne-Sixty SL 8000 seen here and the base model eOne-Sixty SL 6000.
Late summer gave way to winter and the love affair I had with the eOne-Sixty SL was continuing unabated. Only when it came to steep or slippy descents did this rocketship start to falter, and in all honesty, it’s the motor, not the bike. Having ridden a fair smattering of ebikes over the last 12 months, the requirement for a slightly less than naturally high cadence to get power from the SX motor spoils what is otherwise an excellent bike.
On the full fat ebikes, Merida’s shift from Shimano to Bosch has been welcome, especially on bikes like the eOne-Eighty I reviewed earlier in the year. The SX motor lacks the low end grunt of its bigger brother and suffers accordingly. I had the same feeling on the Whyte E-Lyte 150 Works too. As a motor that Bosch have designed around commuting and similar uses, the high cadence required to get the peak power holds this bike back, especially on technical climbs. This can only be changed with the motor gears being updated, so no easy fix.
Putting aside the motor for a moment however, Merida have made an exceptional bike in terms of geometry and kinematics. Whilst it’s not so much an aggressive-minded mid-power machine like the YT Decoy SN or the Whyte E-Lyte, you can still give it some serious beans. You can get that planted feel of an ebike without losing the pop of a 160mm bike. It’s easy to forget that you’re throwing a ~20kg bike around.
Any concerns that I might have had about the EXO+ casing tyres on an ebike have been well and truly put to bed as I didn’t have a single issue for the 6 months I tested this bike. The SRAM DB8 brakes are worthy adversaries to the speed of this bike, and the Rockshox dampers are refined and well tuned.
You can check out the new Merida eOneSixty SL 8000 over on their website here.
