New Merida e-bike gets huge battery and confusing range + Norco goes short travel & high pivot

This time on the MBR Show we’ve been riding the latest new bikes from Merida and Norco, as well as revealing what caught our eyes at the UK’s Core Bike Show.

00:00 – Intro
00:18 – Norco Optic and Sight
08:24 – Core Bike Show highlights – Michelin and RRP
11:25 – Merida eOne-Sixty

@MERIDABIKES-INT has just launched the new eOne-Sixty e-bike range, with a split down the middle that aims to appeal to two different customers. Somewhere along the line the message has got lost in translation however, with the heavier, long-range platform being given the name ‘Lite’, and the slimmed-down, agile carbon bike being called the CF. And that’s not the only head scratcher. Despite being called eOne-Sixty, the bikes have 174mm of travel.

Danny and Alan unravel the confusion and give their early ride impressions, which, once you get passed the muddled names, are really positive.

Merida’s new eOne-Sixty 875 Lite can pack in a whopping 1,110Wh of battery power, making it the longest-range e-bike I’ve ever ridden

In the other big launch news, @NorcoBicyclesOfficial has released new high-pivot versions of the Sight and Optic trail bikes. With the Optic being the shortest travel high-pivot idler bike so far. Or is it?

Jamie has been riding the Optic and trying to work out whether there’s sufficient pay-off in suspension performance and ride quality to offset the extra weight, drag, and complication. All big potential drawbacks for a bike in a category that’s all about minimalism and efficiency.

Norco’s new Optic is the bike I’ve been waiting for: gravity suspension and aggressive geometry meets some very short travel

We’ve also been to the UK’s Core Bike Show, where most of the major brands and distributors show up to talk to media and dealers and display their latest tech kit.

Some new bits that stood out to us were the new, reduced-drag @MichelinGlobal tyres, and RRP’s new bolt-on mudguard.

The 16 most important new products I’ve seen this week: from next gen Michelin Wild Enduro tyres to MTB’s longest mudguard

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Today on the show we’ve got two new high pivot bikes from Norco we look at michelin’s latest Ino tires and there’s a trio of new ebikes from Merid high pivot idler bikes continue to be the hot ticket and Norco has just dropped two new bikes with that configuration the site and the optic we’ve got the optic in the studio here today and Jamie you’ve been riding it right yeah I’ve been riding it so I’ve

Got a question for you do high pivot idler bikes make sense on short travel trail bikes whoa whoa whoa that is you can’t come G too early yeah yeah I’m going to park that I’m going to put a pin in that over there because it can’t

Need to warm you up a little bit yeah totally any case we need to talk about it first right okay so the the the deal give Basics okay the deal is it’s a high pivot design it’s got an Ida but it’s also really short travel it’s 125 mil travel

And that is kind of the only time we’ve seen it that short travel I’ve never known a bike to have 125 and a hold on a second hold on a second right okay so when I tested he’s gonna get out he’s gonna get out get my

Notes here right when I tested the Druid in 2021 forbidden Druid right I measured the travels which what we do in all the bike test at 125 mil okay so this bike is not unique and in fact they claimed 130 cuz they measure along the axle path

But vertical wheel travel was 12 I know what you’re going to ask me now I’m not going to ask you that and I don’t know you don’t know what the vertical wheelchair that’s okay but it’s an interesting link because when I interviewed Owen at forbidden I said

That um this is the the Druid and this style bike was a bike that Norco would never have allowed him to make and five years on they’ve made one yeah and so for anyone who doesn’t know obviously Owen pton is the the founder and Main

Designer of and used to work at Norco he used to work at Norco and started off the whole kind of uh hpe of idler bikes at Norco so yeah should we talk about this bike again so we go back to this bike you haven’t answer my question so

Yeah I’m getting I’m getting there um so yeah uh short travel but it’s got the high pivot idler um which is I don’t know really cool concept if you ask me um okay the question does it does it Mak sense yes and no like it’s a it’s a

Really cool idea um because there are some kind of proven suspension uh performance improvements to have in that design like it does swallow big hits really really well and it does hold you like really flat so whenever you’re going off a drump jump or a drop it’s

Like super composed you never feel like you’re going to kind of go over the bars you land something you land something a bit of crap and it kind of like soaks it up really nicely and it’s it’s really really fast because of that um and then the downside in terms of suspension

Performance I kind of I kind of got buzzed on that bike maybe it’s cuz I was going so fast but it kind of you really feel it coming through like you feel the trail chatter coming up coming up three feet and in your hands so so yes yes and

No so you’re talking about it working well on big bumps yes right but it’s only got 125 M of travel so immediately makes me think well should have just bought a bigger travel bike yeah yeah there is that CU you I mean you pay for it when you get this bike you literally

Pay for it because you know it’s going to it’s cost you more money there’s more going on to this bike there’s more design there’s there’s more of it there’s an idler heavier it’s going to be it’s going to be heavier it up just under 15 kilos all right so I’m going to

Stop you there cuz if we’re talking about like that kind of 120 125 category bikes so I’ve got the transition spur like that’s my favorite bike in that category and I know it’s built a little bit lighter than that but 11.25 kilos yeah uh the Santa Cruz tall boy it’s bit

Burlier but 13.08 kilos what did you say this was nearly 15 it’s like 14.7 something like that okay inside size size four yeah okay but I think the the point is when I when I think of a short travel trail Ripper bike I want it to be

Fast I want it to P be to Pedal well and I’m I’m going to sacrifice some big bump performance I know it’s going to be a bit hectic on rough Des sense because there’s always a tradeoff so so like if you’re trading off some pedal efficiency because there’s drag in the system extra

Drag in the system you’re trading off some weight like what is your return like yeah it’s a good question what is your return you definitely lose some um when you’re pedaling up hill when you’re cranking up a fire Road climb it feels amazing like you don’t feel that way you

Really don’t like the bike just holds you like you don’t Bob you you don’t you don’t feel like you’re wasting any energy and like I think the idler on this bike is is amazing it’s like it’s really big you don’t get one you don’t get the second idler lower down because

You don’t need it to tench to put the only kind of extra drag at the top so there yeah there’s only a little bit of extra drag at the top they’ve worked really hard on the teeth as well they’re only narrow narrow so it doesn’t mimic

The Sham narrow white it’s not the bike I would choose I don’t think I would think if you’re having that extra complexity you might as well have the extra travel because it’s not going to give you it’s it’s not going to cost you much more in terms of weight or drag so

You know you might as well have it like I definitely felt the limits of the travel for sure like going as fast as I could down the normal kind of like trails and Dury kind of trails like you definitely reach the end of it so you had made an interesting point about

Who you think would actually buy this bike didn’t you yeah I’ve got a theory about this bike I think it’s I think it’s a macho bike I think it’s a bike for people who want to be seen as like aggressive gnarly Enduro Trail kind of

Riders uh and then you get this bike and it says to people I’ve I’ve got this amazing bike that’s for downhill but I don’t even need all the travel I’m kind of that good it’s like and you know we know people like that I know people who

Like texted me and said hey I can’t believe you’ve got that bike I really want that bike and they are those kind of people in our younger days we were a little bit like that we we kind of were buzzing on the uh the S short short

Travel 29ers when they sort of came out and and they did feel really good so but yeah I know I know what you mean it’s so you just so short travel 29ers there’s a short travel 29er it’s not just available as 29 only is a oh yeah we

Need to talk about missing link Missing Link yeah yeah so you can change the uh wheel size to the back to Mullet it um and you need one of these which you can I see you you have to swap this whole thing out you put that there and you get

These bad boys you slot these two in like that but I don’t know why it corrects correct the geometry correct the geometry but why why they couldn’t put a flip chip in it probably hasn’t got a big enough normally a flip chip doesn’t corrected enough for everything

And also they might not have wanted to mess with the the kind of suspension Dynamics as well y yeah that’s that’s probably it’s this is the expensive more difficult way to do it but it’s probably the right way to do it yeah yeah so they I think you can

Get it in two different wheel size options can’t you I think it comes 29 but you can specify if you want to get it 27 and a half yeah and it’s it’s kind of limited in the UK isn’t it there’s one of these Optics complete bikes and the frame brought in through silverfish

Isn’t there that’s right you actually can’t get this bike this is the C1 in the UK you can get it you can’t get it in the UK so I think States it’s something like $8,000 okay uh you can get the C2 in this country with slightly Le less good

Spec for like six six and a half and you can get it as a frame frame shock so that’s the other thing is that if anyone’s looking at the geometry on these bikes and they’re going it’s got a pretty short chain State I mean they have they have size specific chain stays

I don’t know if they’re proportional but they’re size specific um and they look pretty short is that you do have to factor in the the chain State growth with the with the SAG basically as the bike sinks in they’ve done a really good job on the geometry and the sizing

Actually it’s like S1 S5 and the S4 there is like 500 mil reach so it’s a big it’s a big bik especially for a short travel bike it’s big so I think that rounds up the optic doesn’t it it’s um I think the the great thing about it

Is it’s another option isn’t it that didn’t really exist before um you you know you got the Forbidden you’ve got this if you if you want something different to what’s out there this is something really exciting new fresh one yeah the next thing we want to talk

About is core bike show which is uh kind of distributor show in the UK really busy lots of Brands there and we both went to that didn’t you you had a bit more time to walk around and see what was there and what did you find anything

Interesting yeah yeah tons of new stuff actually I saw the uh transition repeater the samam power Trin motor so like that is a monster of a bike like it looked really good in the flesh like 170 mil travel front and rear um you know the motor it’s like 680 WS uh Peak power

Like it’s it I’m sure it’s going to be a good bike it looked really cool Michelin wild and duro do you remember those tires from a few years back like Super G sluggish ones yeah super grippy like protected your rims really well but like you you couldn’t ride them unless you’re

A pro athlete or they got the medium soft which is for least conditions and they’ve got the medium hard which is more hard pack conditions and then there’s a rear that’s just called rear um and something like 20 to 30 watts of uh energy saving okay well that’s quite

That’s quite substantial isn’t it yeah which is huge cuz like I don’t know how how many watts do you that’ll offset your that’ll offset your idler right easily easily offset your idler but I’m not sure how they’ve done it like there’s no detail about uh whether it’s

A different comp I think it must be a different comp probably everything right case in compound reinforcement it all it all plays a part in drag so but it still feels like unbelievably tacky like I thumbed those knobs good and proper the show and they were really sticking we in

Fact we filmed the wheel we filmed the tire on a wheel like somebody held it and I filmed it and then we picked it up and it was stuck it was stuck to the cabinet it was like the first time I rode those old Michelin tires that they

Picked up gravel from the road from and I was like luckily I only put one on I put one on the front just to check how slow they were and I was so pleased I didn’t put a PA on but like that sounds like a big improv did you and you rode

With win win Masters or something I paddled around he was paddling us around yeah totally those tires look really good can’t wait to get on those um what else did we see uh RP rapid RAC products has a new Pro Bolton uh massive it’s like 600 mil so

Maybe what is that going to wrap around a quarter of your wheel or something like that don’t the circumference of a 29 in but so it’ss amazing it’s uh they’ve made they’ve managed to do that because they’ve made the plastic a lot more stable so it’s not going to Flap

Around and they’ve got these little gripper pads on the sides where it touches the fork oh I saw those so they told me less wear on the paint and stuff like that yeah well they actually told me that you could but it’s it’s got two

Bolts that go into the fork yeah uh you could take those out and the and the mud guard would stay put like they didn’t say you should ride yeah don’t ride like that but but they said it would like it’s that sticky so that’s really useful so yeah tons of stuff that’s literally

Like just touching the surface yeah like it was a good vibe in the show and there was lots of good products so yeah that’s not the only thing that’s been going on as well I mean we’ve we’ve had the noros we’ve also had three new bikes from

Merid as well haven’t we three yeah wow I think I missed one there another one you rode and then I rode one but what was the third one well they managed to tie themselves in knots with the naming of these different platforms um so I’m going to try and unravel this tangled

Web um so there’s the there are two new e60s they’re all ebikes e160 you think that have it 160 travel no 174 millimeters of travel in 275 rear wheel format in 27.5 rear wheel format does have 160 when you put it in uh 29 in format and then you all to the flip

Jip but that bike’s always had a 27 half inch wheel so the name convention hasn’t come from that uh and then there’s also an e140 which does have actually kind of around around about 140 mil travel um but I’m going to park that bike for today and that’s a bike I didn’t know

About and I’m going to we’re going to talk about The One e160 models cuz I think they’re the most exciting ones now where the real confusion comes in is uh that there is there is one bike that has a carbon frame and a small battery that you can’t remove and that’s all about

Kind of weight saving making it as agile as possible uh and that is the bike that urod and that is called the CF and then there’s one which is as an alloy frame uh has a removable 700 50w battery bigger battery all about same lay exactly uh and they call that the light

Yeah even though it’s about 3 or four kilos heavier the light one the light one the light one so if you check out the new merid ranges then you see the light that is the heavy one and then the other one is the CF that is actually the

Light one so one of the other uh really key um sort of differentiators with these models is that they use Flex day back end on both e60s now in alloy and carbon it doesn’t matter which material exactly they get that from the the normal bike as well didn’t they cuz I I

Rod that bike it works really well they have been using the flex day design for quite a few few years now on the analog bikes they’ve taken that technology onto the ebikes and in both frame materials uh and with 174 M of travel that’s kind of unheard of really um so quite

Exciting and obviously in the KNE bik the not really doing it for weight saving let’s be let’s be honest about this the reason for doing it is well what one is cost saving that’s a big that’s a big deal two is they’re getting rid of parts and components so um

There’s lighter lighter to maintain less to make less to assemble less for consumers to replace how much light is it going to be 150 g something like that maybe I know it’s not much but you take it out of everywhere and adds up right the kind of selling point they’re

They’re pitching to consumer is that there’s one less pivot to replace down the line yeah okay we’ll we’ll take that that’s fine um if it works so the thing is well that’s the point right I’m pretty skeptical about Flex Day designs because I’ve had some bad experiences on

Them I rode the um e160 the CF the top end bik with Fox Factory suspension in Italy and I was blown away by how good the suspension was and like that bike has always had mind-blowingly good suspension from its launch and the new bike has has this has a better

Suspension feel with modern geometry it’s pretty impressive and I will concur having ridden the alloy one which is uh you know the heavy one the suspension was also amazing on that bike and um and I will concur riding the mar the original one the analog bike the analog bike it

Was really it was really fun bike it work the suspension worked really well so what’s the problem so Marita basically say that there’s only like I think it’s three degrees of movement in the stays so that’s why there’s not a there’s not a big a big spring Force

Effect from the stage there is some so at the launch we actually took the shark out and cycled the suspension you feel it kind of has a little bit of buildup in in Spring force and then it gets to a point where it’s like an inflection point and then it actually helps

Compress the suspension towards the end it’s hard to tell when the shock’s not in the bike because you’re not you don’t know exactly where you are in terms of the travel but the effect’s minimal but but that bike has got a pitter patter suspension response it’s unbelievable I

Mean yeah when I wrote it I was like this feels like a coil shock coil sprung bike even though it’s got an air shot onun it it was it was that impressive so yeah they’ve really really done a great job with the suspension I enjoyed riding

That bike so much I rode in the dark yeah CU it comes with the light right is and I was like and I I was we that’s the light we’ve always been like what the hell’s it got light for what a waste of time like what am I going to do

Go to the shops on it but basically you saw the footage like it’s dark it was dark and I was like let’s do another run cuz I’m having such a good time that’s really cool some other key points about this bike it’s got the Shimano ep81

Motor but it uses a third- party battery so um hence you know the 750 because Shimano doesn’t make a 750 the 600 600 in the light bike oh sorry the CF and then there’s a 360 W range extender which is enormous it basically take fills the entire triang so what’s really funny what’s

Really funny with that is that John showed me that like he because from Marita right Marita he’s got those two there’s those two big T on the down tube basically that slots onto so it’s really secure and the minute he put it on it I thought on the CF bike cuz it’s got

Smaller down tube I thought that looks like an ebite from like seven years ago the batter pretty much the same shape and size as the old Shimano like 503 W hour battery so that’s so that’s 1,100 W hours 1.1 kilowatt hours Kow hours now like a like a Tesla or

Something on on the alloy bike not on no you can use it on both yes but that’s the amount the the numbers of Jamie foror exactly I’m you could never get through you could never get You’ have to be pretty physically strong cuz your your bike being being

That the alloy bike ra around 26 kilos throw another 3 kilos on that you got a 29 Kilo bike you’re going to be riding around for I don’t know hours so yeah I think actually it’s more for the guy with the 600 on the CF bike maybe wants

To go on some big rides you yeah the option’s there for anyone isn’t it the interesting thing is to to accommodate this uh range extender so they’ve rotated the shock so the piggyback now sticks out the drive side kind of where your thigh is doesn’t actually rub it looks like it’s going to

But it doesn’t Danny I’m going to contradict you here cuz I actually could feel the shock um okay just on the inside of my thigh B thighs of me I don’t know about that but like just just remember just on the way I was cornering and on those trails not annoyingly but I

Could just feel a little and it could have been because it was so darn wet that my kind of my riding pants are starting to slide down everything stuck to me and stuff so the cool the cool thing with the merita setup is like like a lot of Forward Thinking Brands is that

They uh they run very low kind of top tubes short seat tubes lots of stand over and that gives you a really wide window of sizes so they potentially you could choose between three sizes and it’s a good looking bike yeah like that white bike that I wrode with the Factory

Suspension I was got great tires good brakes the whole thing I was like I just I loved it such two good I had like two amazing runs on it that’s all I wrote it for did you feel the difference in suspension when you uh had the Range

Extender on and when you took it off didn’t try the rang Center um unfortunately so I can’t answer that question yeah cuz that would have been interesting I would be surprised if I don’t feel it but we we will have to try that out you’d also like that’s that the

Range extender is what is it three you have to change suspens especially your fork y definitely if you fit that yeah so um so there we have the merid I think to sum up get the alloy bike if range is your number one priority and then get the carbon model if you want

The most dynamic handling right so uh there’s a really interesting range of bikes from merid and I think uh that throws out the question to the audience what do you prefer were you going to prioritize handling or range let know in comments below that was B Donald Trump then

Atast that was toal Donald Trump can you leave that in that’s pretty funny come on come on that’s don’t cut that out that’s hilarious that [Laughter] was