Some bike bling to kick the day off. This is the Merida Ninety Six, a race-ready bike introduced a couple of years ago.
The 1.9kg (4.2lb) frame houses a single pivot linkage driven DT Swiss rear shock delivering 100mm of rear wheel travel in a full carbon frame, including a carbon swingarm and shock linkage.
The front triangle is made as a monococque and the seat tube, main pivot and part of the downtube are made using a tube-to-tube process (where tubes are cut to length, bonded and additional layers of carbon wrapped around the joints), while the rear triangle uses the same tube-to-tube construction method for the seat stays and the chainstays are a monocoque.
The Carbon Team-D seen here is the top of the range model and is specced ready to hit the race circuit with SRAM XX and an FSA K-Force dual-ring chainset rolling on BB30. Of course, this bike being on show at a DT Swiss product launch last week it’s no surprise to find a DT Swiss XRC 100mm fork up front. The lower assembly and the hollow arch of this fork are made from carbon, as is the crown and steerer tube and the dropouts are magnesium; the all-up weight is impressive at 1170g!
Finishing kit is top draw. FSA carbon handlebars, stem and seatpost reduce the weight even further and the wheels are running ultra-low profile Maxxis Aspen tyres. There’s some cool additions for the racer mounted to the handlebar, in the shape of a minimalist lockout lever on each side of the bars for both front and rear shocks.
How much does all this bling cost? Well, last year it cost a whopping £7500, but this year the price has dropped to £5,108.69.
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