Which MERIDA e-MTB is best for you? eONE-EIGHTY, eONE-SIXTY or eONE-SIXTY SL?

When it comes to picking an e-bike, Mountain bikers have more choice than ever – and that’s not just between different brands of bike, but between the different styles of ebike. Light support, full support, big battery, low weight – it’s hard to know what will be best – especially if you’re unsure what those terms even mean.

It can all be a bit of a minefield, so this article explains the differences between the different ebikes we make, their relative strengths and what sort of rider they suit best, so you can make sure you pick the one that’s best for you.

You can also  scroll down to watch this article as a video below.

There are a lot of factors that go in to how an ebike rides, but the key ones are the level of support the drive unit offers, how big the battery powering it is and how much suspension travel there is on offer.

Weight is an important factor in a bike because it feeds into how agile the bike is to ride. While we tune our suspension and geometry carefully to make our bikes lively and fun to ride, but you simply can’t get around weight. A more powerful full-support drive system weighs more, a larger battery weighs more and having more suspension travel and the tougher equipment that needs will also weigh more.

What is full support? And what does light support mean?

If you were wondering what we mean by full support, it’s basically any drive unit that produces a torque over about 80Nm – in our case we used the Bosch Performance Line CX drive units and Shimano’s EP801. Torque is the twisting force the unit delivers – it’s what will get you up and over steep obstacles and a higher torque makes the support feel much more muscular. With a recent update, the Bosch drive unit puts out an impressive 100Nm, while Shimano’s unit puts out a still powerful 85Nm. 

The torque also feeds into the power the drive unit delivers. By EU law, all pedelec bikes have a maximum continuous power output of 250W, but full support drive units can deliver much higher instantaneous power of up to around 600-750W for a short amount of time – they also do this without you having to spin the cranks like mad, as is often the case with lighter support units.

When it comes to light support units, we use the Bosch SX system, which is arguably more of a mid support option with 55Nm of torque but an impressive peak power of 600W, though that comes at a much higher rpm. The benefit that that this drive unit is substantially lighter than full support items at 2kg versus around 2.6 to 2.8 kg.

MERIDA eONE-EIGHTY - the big battery, big travel bike

That brings us on to the heavy hitter of our lineup, namely the eONE-EIGHTY. It’s a bruiser of a bike, with 180 mm of travel at either end, so it’s ready for seriously rough and wild terrain, with a strong aluminium frame and tough kit to match. It also has the biggest battery of any of our ebikes, with an 800 Wh removable unit that can be boosted by a 250 Wh range extender – all of which powers a full support Bosch CX drive unit.

As you’d imagine, that makes it ideal for riders that want to ride seriously tough and rough trails, out in the mountains or the bike park – and to be able to do that all day long. While we’ve fine tuned the geometry and fitted mixed size wheels to keep it feeling fun and agile, it’s still a big bike and that does mean you need to muscle it about, so, if you’re a smaller or lighter rider, this means it could be more fatiguing on tighter, twistier trails – though the weight will keep it tracking true on rougher ground.

MERIDA eONE-SIXTY - the balanced full-power all rounder

Now, if you still want all the full-power support of the eONE-EIGHTY, but in a lighter overall package, then you might be best looking at the eONE-SIXTY CF. With 170 mm of travel at the front and 174mm at the back, this is still a bike that can tackle some serious terrain – but with a full carbon fibre frame and a 600Wh battery fixed in the downtube, this bike is much lighter, which makes it much easier to throw about on the trail. Thanks to using Shimano’s EP801 drive unit, there’s no compromise when it comes to hill climbing ability though – and with our optional 360Wh range extender, you can still get some serious climbing done.

MERIDA eONE-SIXTY SL - the hard hitting light support bike

This bike is basically the full-power all-rounder, but it’s still a ride than very much feels like an ebike – which is where the eONE-SIXTY SL comes in. By using Bosch’s lightweight SX drive unit and a 400Wh battery built into the carbon frame, the weight – and therefore riding experience - of this bike is much closer to that of an unassisted bike. With 160mm of travel at either end, it’s still really capable on the descents, but we’ve fitted lighter weight components, such as fork, wheels and tyres to keep the weight down.

With 55Nm of torque, there’s still very much a helping hand of assistance, but it’s a bike that’s best suited to riders that want to put in a significant amount of effort overall, rather than letting the drive unit do most of the heavy lifting. The smaller battery and lighter weight mean it’s much easier to move about – but of course, there’s less assisted range on offer, though a 250Wh range extender can be fitted to offset that.

Which one of these bikes is best for you?

To know that, you’ll have to figure out whether you’re willing to sacrifice weight to have a supremely capable and tough big battery bike like the eONE-EIGHTY.

At the other end of the spectrum, you can get low weight and almost uncompromised handling with the eONE-SIXTY SL, but you’re going to have to put in more effort on the climbs and accept less range.

Of course, that means that in the middle we have the eONE-SIXTY CF, which strikes a balance between range, weight and ride feel.

If you’d like to find out more then check out the links below for some in-depth info on each of these bikes.

eONE-EIGHTY

eONE-SIXTY

eONE-SIXTY SL