Merida Ride 90 review

Merida Ride 90

Cycling Weekly Verdict

Other small problems? Well, you’ll notice it can all get a bit rattly. But what were we saying about appearances? It may look a little odd, unwieldy even, but the Merida Ride 90 is actually a very fine bike to ride, and if you’re new to road cycling, it’s a very friendly companion.

Reasons to buy
  • +

    Groupset

  • +

    Climbs well

Reasons to avoid
  • -

    Brakes

You can trust Cycling Weekly. Our team of experts put in hard miles testing cycling tech and will always share honest, unbiased advice to help you choose. Find out more about how we test.

Merida is one of the biggest bike manufacturers in the world and the established wisdom used to be that the company made bikes for countless other brands at its five factories (one in Taiwan, three in China, one in Germany). In truth, it did start out by producing other people’s products — Raleigh USA’s in fact — but apparently now it focuses a lot more on its own-brand bikes.

That said, it does have a 49 per cent share in Specialized, which might not come as much of a shock when you look at the Ride 90’s alloy frame and that bowed top tube — there’s more than a hint of the Specialized Allez about it. Merida certainly isn’t related corporately to Giant, though, yet that tiny rear triangle has a resemblance to some of its Taiwanese rival’s bikes or even GT’s aluminium road bikes.

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