Wheels

and the damnation of the Scultura, the

ride felt just the same. These are sweet

wheels, though the wet braking is poor.

The terrible, Merida-badged underslung

rear brake is partly to blame, as there was

little power even on the alloy Mavics.

What’s more, this bike is expensive.

For extra hundreds, you could have a

sensational Bianchi Specialissima with

Campagnolo Super Record. I rode one

back-to-back with the Merida: it blew

it away and feels so much more, well,

special. Or, for half the cash, you could

have a Canyon Ultimate CF SLX 9.0 with

the same spec and a far superior frame.

Each weighs the same as the Scultura.

I spoke to Jürgen Falke, product

director at Merida R&D in Germany.

He accepted our criticism but said

the bike is for ‘weight weenies’ and

that it’s impossible to make a frame

this light without losing stiffness.

Yet Bianchi and Canyon, plus others

such as Cervélo and Scott, don’t

have that problem. Their super-light

bikes perform brilliantly. If a 700g

frame had to be this flexy then

there would be nothing to criticise.

Merida simply didn’t get this right.

Only three sizes are offered and

the geometry is long and low, so

it may be tricky for some riders to

get comfortable. We’ll cut to it – the

Scultura 9000 is not that good. There

is a very tangible lack of stiffness,

especially in the fork, headtube

and rear triangle. The steering

lacks precision, wandering around

slightly over imperfect surfaces at

speed, and sprint efforts are not

met with crisp responses. And

it’s only averagely comfortable.

The DT Swiss Mon Chasseral RC28C

wheels are very light for clinchers (1,271g

on our scales). Their eager acceleration

flatters the frame but I wondered if

they’re too light and responsible for some

of the flex. To find out, I swapped in a

set of Mavic’s brilliant and super-stiff

R-Sys SLRs. To the credit of the DTs,

The scultura is Merida’s superlight

climbing bike. At 6.14kg for this size

L, it is indeed feathery, though this

isn’t the lightest in the range. That

would be the 9000 LTD, a £10k halo

model equipped with freaky-light

carbon fibre parts from AX Lightness

to tip the scales at 4.55kg and claim

the title of world’s lightest production

bike. This 9000 uses the same 680g

frame, built with SRAM Red 22, DT

Swiss RC28C wheels, an FSA cockpit

and a carbon Selle Italia SLR saddle.

The choice of a compact 50/34

chainset makes sense for a climbing-

focused bike though the 11-28 cassette

has some big and unpleasant jumps

in the top half. It can be useful to have

that winch-like bottom gear for extreme

events but if this were my bike I’d get

an 11-25 for the rest of the time.

Great wheel; good

components; light

PROS

Disappointing lack of

frame stiffness; weak

rear brake

CONS

Way off the pace at this

price. Or half of it

VERDICT

The DT Swiss Mon

Chasseral RC28C

wheelset is a highlight

and goes some way

to mitigating the frame

http://www.merida-bike.com

Merida Scultura 9000

74 // March 2016