78 -AMB
ONE DAMN
SEXY SIXTY
PHOTOGRAPHER: DOMINIC HOOK TESTER: SEBASTIAN JAYNEMERIDA ONE-SIXTY 6000
SEB JAYNE
RIDER BIORiding Experience: Over six years racing
national and international XCOGenerally Rides: Norco Revolver 29 FS
Height: 175cm
Weight: 65kg
Bike Test Track: Bright, Mt BeautyToday’s Merida bikes are the result of German engineering
being fused with Taiwanese manufacturing. Its lineage dates
to a time when Taiwanese bikes were cast off as bad quality
products that bike shops wouldn’t event touch. Now, Taiwan is
arguably the hub for bicycle manufacturing, and throwing in a
bit of German engineering before you spit out a bike frame will
no doubt put you in good stead. Merida’s latest foray to land on
the testing desk is the One-Sixty 6000. Its enduro specific frame
is adorned with big and burly parts that are begging to smash
just about any trail on the hill. So, let’s go see what it can do!
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS
Murdered. The all-black paint job of the One-Sixty stands out.
And it does so by not trying to stand out. The frame combines
a matte black finish with gloss black detailing to bring the
blacked-out look alive - and avoids the obvious trap of this
colourway of simply looking ‘unpainted’. The blacked-out
RockShox suspension and SRAM GX Eagle drivetrain complete
the look nicely - as does the 27.5” DT Swiss wheelset and
2.4” Maxxis Minion tyres. Like a racer letting their legs do the
talking, the Merida lets its curves (or rather it sharp angles) do
the talking.
The carbon front triangle has a pronounced head tube that
hints at what this bike is capable of. The angular front triangle
is joined to the aluminium rear triangle via the floating link
rear suspension unit. The ‘Float Link’ rear suspension aims
to move the RockShox Super Deluxe RCT through its travel
with a progressive feel that is designed to make its 160mm
seem considerably more. The front bounce is controlled by the
RockShox Lyrik RC fork. With 170mm of travel and Boost axle
spacing, there is absolutely no denying where this bike wants to
be pointed.
The smaller details that sometimes go unnoticed can make
a big difference to the finished product on a bike. The One-
Sixty features full internal cabling for the GX Eagle gears and
RockShox Reverb Stealth dropper. The maintenance of the
internal cabling is relatively easy thanks to a massive port at
the bottom of the downtube. Just up from the port is a thick
bash guard that should stop any rock from cracking the carbon.
Not that the bare carbon will be easy to crack as Merida have
used a Nano Matrix Carbon that bonds the fibres together with
an epoxy resin that contains nanoparticles to increase impact
resistance by 40 per cent. This hasn’t resulted in a heavy
front end, though, as the main carbon triangle weighs in at an
expected 1,000g without shock.
The angles and lengths that all these parts are joined by are
what largely determines how the bike feels out on the trail.
The One-Sixty has been designed by Merida to offer a modern
enduro geometry. That means a long and slack frame that can
tackle even the steepest and toughest tracks with
confidence and stability at speed. Its wheelbase
spans 1209mm in the medium frame, which
is comparatively long next to similar offerings
in the 27.5” enduro market, with the majority
under 1200mm. This theme is carried to the
reach that sits at 445mm. A similarly long bike,
the Specialized Enduro, sits at 444mm while
juxtaposed is the Yeti SB6 and Norco Range that
have a reach of 422mm and 437mm, respectively.