Merida’s new eOne-Sixty SL is exactly the kind of machine that would have made our massive Superlight E-Bike of the Year shootout had it come out in 2024’s sunny season, not its leafy one. With the neat 55Nm Bosch SX motor it’s bit of a looker, and even lives up to the SL name, with weights starting at 19.5kg. Is that enough to earn a spot alongside the best lightweight e-bikes? Let’s find out.

That’s not the absolute lightest for the mid-power category though, and the claimed weight is also only for the top-tier, 10K, model, complete with whopping £11.5k price tag. There are two cheaper models offered though, with the eOne-Sixty SL here the middle of a range at £6,000.

The lines on the Merida eOne-Sixty SL 8000 are pin-sharp. It’s arguably the best looking Merida e-bike to date.

Merida eOne-Sixty SL need to know

• New e-bike platform for Merida using the Bosch SX motor
• High-revving drive unit puts out 55Nm torque and up to 600W peak power
• Carbon frame uses flex-stay back end and gives 160mm travel
• At 20.5kg, this is one of the heavier Bosch SX-powered bikes we’ve tested
• Alternative Merida eOne-Sixty options use the Shimano EP801 motor

At 20.5kg, this 8000 bike model RockShox Select+ suspension, GX Eagle AXS drivetrain and DT-Swiss wheels. For comparison, that’s 2kg more than Specialized’s less powerful, but equivalent-spec Turbo Levo SL Expert. But Merida’s SL does have 10mm more travel at both ends. Another big contender in this class is Whyte’s test-winning ELyte, and with marginally less travel and exact same motor and battery, that bike is also a bit lighter. In fact, Whyte’s RSX model looks to be going pretty much head-to-head with this Merida 8000 on price and spec.

The triangulated swing-link brace gives the Merida eOne-Sixty SL a distinctive look that helps separate it from the legions of e-bikes using this frame layout.

Weight is obviously not the whole picture though. The way any bike rides is key, especially when the SL holy grail is handling like a ‘normal’ bike, while offering the sensation of constantly fresh legs. To do this, the eOne-Sixty is developed from the same ‘FAST’ kinematic platform found on the regular and electric One-Sixtys, with a flex-stay and rocker link-driven single pivot, but there’s a new layout and different styling to differentiate it from Merida’s Shimano-powered e-bikes.

Some bikes in the MBR SL group test like Orbea Rise and Cannondale Moterra SL use EP801s with lighter/smaller capacity batteries to save weight, but Merida preferred a complete move over to Bosch. Considering it’s also done the same on the also new eOne-Eighty, that’s pretty big news for a Taiwanese manufacturer that’s been a dyed-in-the-wool Shimano user since first entering the e-bike market.

Want a full power Bosch motor? Merida can offer you its heavy-duty eOne-Eighty.

Partly, it’s because Shimano doesn’t have a ‘true’ lightweight motor, but also because Merida wants a Bosch offering on shop floors to trade on the German brand’s reputation for reliability. Merida also already has several EP801 bikes too; including a full carbon eOne-Sixty with a fixed internal 600Wh battery that’s reasonably light too. Well, reasonably light for a full power e-bike that is, as it’s still 3.5kg heavier than this Bosch SX bike, so it’s obvious how the new SL plugs a hole in the range and offers alternative options. Even if there’s a myriad of names, numbers, and specs to wrap your head around.

Earlier this year, Merida also launched the alloy-framed eOne-Sixty 875 with the Shimano EP801 motor.

Merida designed the new SL frame from the ground up around the SX motor and a fixed 400Wh internal battery. Like other SX bikes out there, there’s also the option of an additional 250Wh PowerMore range extender you buy from Bosch direct. This means though that if, like me, you don’t have a heated garage to charge in, the fixed battery might be a bit of a deal breaker. That said, this potential flaw is hardly unique in this category, and, let’s be honest; most potential customers for an e-bike costing this much will likely have somewhere warm and dry with a plug socket.

That distinctive brace secures the swing-link and serves as a mount for the charging port.

Frame and suspension

Merida’s full carbon SL frame has a Cat 4 enduro rating (riding or racing), 160mm travel and is primarily built around 29in wheels. There’s a flip-chip to mullet the wheel set-up, but it looks like the design team hasn’t really optimised it for the smaller rear wheel as the chainstay length grows and the travel jumps (to 174mm) in this configuration.

The designers have done some great work on the styling. With slim flex-stays and smooth squared-off profiles, I reckon the SL is one of the brand’s best looking models, with a subtle podgy conventional bike vibe, rather than being some kind of swollen electric contraption. The slimmer battery hidden in the down tube helps, and Bosch’s SX drive unit is pretty compact, and helps keep the ‘regular’ looks while still pumping out an impressive 600W peak power.

Easy to find, and less likely to fill with moisture – the eOne-Sixty SL’s charging port is high on the frame but close the range extender mount.

This headline figure is a match even for many full fat e-bikes, but the 55Nm torque is well down on a full fat unit, and you need to pedal really fast to extract full power. It’s really evident on the trails too, where spinning like a hamster above 100rpm accesses a lot more assistance.

Like Merida’s new eOne-Eighty, the SL uses a triangulated seat tube support to wrap the rocker link and lower shock mount. It means being able to eliminate the shock yoke extender that can place a lot of side-to-side loading and increase shock wear and potentially reduce performance. The SL kinematic is optimised around air shocks like the Fox Float X or RockShox Super Deluxe, so there’s less progression in the curve to play nicely with more progressive, smaller, air cans.

Unlike the eOne-Eighty, the SL also retains Merida’s signature flex-stays to save weight. Engineers explained they tried a version with a pivot bearing during development and actually preferred the SL like this, as it was ‘a bit more springy and livelier’.

Direct post 180 brake mount and Merida’s flex-stay dropouts are slick. There’s even a rubber scuff guard to protect from heel rub.

During testing, I took the Super Deluxe shock out to remove a volume spacer and noticed the point of inflection (where ‘tension’ in the stays flips from one direction to the other) is in a very different place to the regular eOne-Sixty. The SL is very deep in the stroke, at around 80% of the travel, while the analogue bike flips at around sag.

A flip-chip gives geo compensation depending on wheel size used. Stock configuration is 29in front and rear.

Talking of those stays, there’s a funky little kink above the rear axle, and at 450mm on all sizes, the rear centre is not size-specific (and actually longer than most of Merida’s other bikes). This extra length optimises handling towards faster enduro-style tracks rather than the bike park, flicky, rail-the-turns vibe of shorter stays. Because the SL is designed to handle more like a normal bike, geometry is similar too, with a 64° head angle, and it also has less stack to better weight the front tyre.

I’m not tall, but I found this latter part, combined with longer chainstays and the stock low-rise handlebar, meant the front was too low. I nabbed a Race Face Era riser bar off the more expensive 10k model to get a workable bar height and stop my centre of gravity feeling tipped too far forward. Other journalists at the launch had a similar issue, and going forward Merida says it will leave a longer steerer tube and more spacers for customers to tune bar height to taste.

Tyre clearance is limited at the seatstay bridge on the eOne-Sixty SL. Unless you run it as a mullet.

In terms of SL stats, wheelbase across the five size range grows from roughly 1,200mm up to 1,300mm, and reach stretches from 420mm to 512mm. Interestingly, these are generally a bit shorter than Merida’s equivalent analogue bikes, with the Mid-size tested here getting 466mm, compared to 470mm on the equivalent human-powered One-Sixty.

Merida is sticking to headset-routed cables, despite it being a maintenance headache.

Other frame details include Acros headset cable routing – that is the only way Merida sell the bike. There’s all the frame protection you’d expect, including a seriously padded ribbed chain silencer, and a heel rub defender on the non-drive side. The overall slimmer chassis meant I had none of the knee-knocking issues I experienced around the eOne-Eighty’s shock linkage area.

One other frame detail worth pointing out is the rear end doesn’t have huge tyre clearance, and is only rated for 2.4in, not 2.6in tyres. There are mounts for a full-size bottle or range extender (but not both, like Whyte’s ELyte), a longer rear fender than the one installed, and a useful 4mm and 6mm allen key hidden in the rear QR axle.

The Bosch SX motor is completely hidden by the bespoke cover.

Motor and battery

The 55Nm Bosch SX motor is one of the best in its category with 340% assistance at its most powerful, but there’s a good reason Merida had us riding the SL/SX bike at the launch before the new eOne-Eighty model with thew newer CX motor. In comparison, the 800g lighter SX is clearly less refined and feels like an older generation drive unit compared to the CX – Bosch has largely killed the market for the SX with the improvements to the CX, unless you really crave that ultimate weight saving – in whichg case you’d probably be looking at a TQ bike anyway.

SX demands more delicacy and attention to gearing to eke the best power out of it, and it also rattles on downhills, where the new CX is near silent. The motor whine is louder too, and response is less instantaneous, which is especially noticeable exiting corners, where there’s a slight lag when cranking.

You can also just mash on full power CX in a ham-fisted manner in any gear and it will pull up and along, and its extended boost (or overrun) makes the whole ride experience smoother and more seamless; particularly climbing up over steps or bumps. Where CX on the eOne-Eighty will pull and glide, Merida’s SL almost audibly grimaces and groans if you try to grind a high gear at a low cadence.

Ready to accept Bosch’s touchscreen when it eventually arrives.

But this an SL bike, right? So, why am I comparing it to a full fat motor? Well, none of this would be fair if Whyte hadn’t just released a CX EVO version of its ELyte 150 that’s kind of blown this mid-power/mid-weight category wide open. Whyte’s doing what other SLs have done with Shimano’s full power motor in the past, but using Bosch’s new engine. And just like this time last year, when it was first to market with an SX bike, it seems to have jumped the gun on many competitors by clever forward thinking.

That’s not to say there aren’t some positives with the almost 1kg lighter SX system. So far, it’s proven way more reliable than Fazua’s Ride 60 that’s the only other similar motor – and yet the Fazua still can’t touch it for high end power. Even though Fazua’s system goes further and higher with its slightly bigger 430Wh battery, it has a reliability issue, and flimsy mode controller.

The SX range is decent too (and huge in eco mode, where it can still take the sting out of climbs) and has a slick range extender you can actually buy, whereas Fazua’s seems permanently lost in the post. There’s more than enough power with SX to ride up anything and mostly keep up with full fat e-bikers if you are reasonably fit too, so long as you can keep the cadence higher. I also really like that the Q-factor is narrower than most e-bikes, so the cranks feel closer together, and this adds to the feeling of being more like a normal bike when pedalling.

In the meantime, the Purion 400 display is a neat and effective solution.

Integration

Bosch’s displays and controllers now integrate into bikes in a really slick way. The controller module is embedded in the top tube and there’s a sliding door charging port together with a neat, bar-mounted, Purion 400 display. This looks a lot like Shimano’s, but has more useful data and it’s clearer to read. The modes can be cycled through via the wireless Mini Remote that sits very cleanly by the left grip.

As is Bosch’s wireless Mini Remote. Just be careful of that rubber cover.

Bosch’s 400Wh battery also powers the SRAM AXS GX mech on this 8000 model, which it transpires has one significant drawback if you completely drain the battery; the gears no longer work once the bike is dead. Carrying an extra AXS battery in your pocket might be an idea if you regularly run your e-bikes down to nothing and want to be able to actually ride home (not exactly unfeasible on a 20kg bike).

SRAM’s GX Eagle AXS Transmission is powered by the internal battery, but you can’t change gear when the bike is out of juice.

Components and kit

It’s cool Merida isn’t offering ‘fake’ kit and scrimping on wheels and tyres to get the SL’s headline weight down. Proper Maxxis rubber comes in EXO+ casing with a Maxx Grip Assegai and Maxx Terra DHR II, and the DT Swiss HX 1700 aluminium wheels are tough and solid for high e-bike mileage. There’s also a stiff-enough RockShox Lyrik Select+ 160mm fork with 35mm stanchions, and the same 160m travel rear end uses a piggy-back reservoir shock with more damper oil in it, that should perform better on extended descents.

SRAM’s cool-looking GX cranks are a nice touch.

SRAM delivers both drivetrain and brakes mostly via GX Eagle 12-speed T-Type and the basic, but mineral-oil filled DB8 brakes. At first glance the brakes – look a little budget and under-gunned on a pricy e-bike – but with thicker, stiffer HS2 rotors, they worked really well, and surprised me by handling long, sometimes steep, descents at the bike’s launch in Spain. Rotors are 200mm at both ends, and even with the rear post mount neatly hidden inside the stays, the maximum size is actually 220mm, so heavier riders could always go up in rotor size if they needed even more poke.

The more I use SRAM’s T-Type on e-bikes, the more I appreciate the solid shifts and light-touch of the AXS pods. I could just stomp on the gas and smash through gears without any vagueness, and it’s also pretty robust and durable, so long as you don’t totally smash the cage off. Cranks here are 165mm, which is reasonably short, but Whyte’s ELyte uses 10mm stubbier, 155mm, cranks to go with its 40mm BB drop in the Low position. This Merida is a fair bit higher at the BB, with a 27.5mm BB drop, but that does give extra pedal clearance.

Seriously ribbed chainstay protection sadly can’t do anything for the Bosch SX’s internal rattle.

Elsewhere, there’s plenty of own-brand Merida kit including bars, stem, and seatpost (170mm drop on this Mid). It mostly works fine, except the bar could do with more rise to tune the cockpit set up, and the Comp TR II seatpost can be a bit grouchy and sensitive to cable tension.

I’ve moaned before about Merida’s Expert grips being too hard, and the brand has some new mushroom-style replacements coming (see photos) that I tried at the launch, and these are infinitely better. My backside didn’t appreciate Merida’s angular Proxim saddle, but everyone’s butt is different. I fully approved of Merida’s steeper-than-most 78.5° seat angle, that kept my weight well-centred, even on some of the punchy rock-scrambling climbs we were messing about on.

RockShox’s latest Charger 3.1 damper in the Lyrik fork is easy to tune whether you prefer supple and active or firm and supportive.

In terms of value, the Merida SL packages are reasonable but nothing spectacular. The 6000 and 8000 model designations are matched pound-for-pound by their asking prices, but at £11.5k, the 10K range-topper feels like a big ask given the deals currently available in the market.

Merida on the rocks, shaken, not stirred.

Performance – How it rides

Agile and light, the Merida e-One-Sixty SL can really bomb uphill and rides a lot like a normal bike; just not the one I was expecting it to. Whereas Merida’s human-powered One-Sixty balances ample plushness with enough support to hold rider weight stable, while always feeling connected to the ground, there’s a different vibe here.

The SL riding position is slightly more tipped forwards (possibly in part due to the longer 450mm chainstays) and there’s more support in the suspension. Think less enduro attitude – standing on the pedals with heels down and letting the bike absorb repeated hits – and more of a capable, longer travel, trail bike sensation where you milk the reactiveness and work more precisely with the terrain.

Pressing feet down to weight the SL suspension, I could spring and pump a bit more for extra speed on smoother trails, but where the back end on the regular One-Sixty (and the regular eOne-Sixty) is so well tuned that the damping takes the sting out of terrain and works with me to maintain speed, this SL has a tighter, more rampy ride.

The SX motor gives plenty of assistance, as long as your legs can spin fast enough.

In this way, this SL feels like it has a bit less travel than the 160mm advertised (I’d have guessed 150mm) and is also less planted under hard braking. Occasionally, on very rocky rounded slabs in Spain, the back tyre was touching down quite sharply on the ground on big hits, so I removed a couple of Super Deluxe volume spacers to try and make the shock a bit more linear deeper in the stroke. This change made the back end feel softer and smoother, but I only had limited ride time, and further tuning might extract even more from the suspension.

In terms of steering, I rode the SL with my head quite far forward and plenty weight on the front tyre. This position is very good for slinging in and out of repeated turns, and reacting to constant direction changes on tight trails, but not as kicked-back as some bikes, where it’s easier to lift the front tyre or brace with my hips and feet while slamming into obstacles or absorbing drops.

With the constant SX assistance, the SL is a great machine for keeping a high average speed on trails that are gradually undulating. One of the test tracks I rode had lots of little trials sections bolted together with short punchy climbs or sprints interspersed into a long downhill run. Merida’s SL was absolutely perfect for it, and it was a proper hoot sprinting the pedally bits and being able to give it full beans in a way I never would on a regular bike, where all the hard efforts would kill the flow. While a full-fat e-bike would suck the life out of the trail, the eOne-Sixty still felt fast, dynamic, and rolled with minimal effort.

The eOne-Sixty SL doesn’t feel as plush and planted as its Shimano-powered stablemates.

I also accidentally stumbled on some very steep black trails while looking for a red run, and the SL handled those just fine too. Without feeling too solid or dead, where there’s enough chassis stiffness to deal with full weight body twists, while really leaning hard on the bars and head tube. The suspension also had enough depth to grip and connect when I was fighting for control on the brakes at slow speeds.

Overall, Merida’s eOne-Sixty SL feels a bit more efficient and trail-biased than I expected for what is a 20kg+ e-bike with 160mm of travel. I found I got the most out of it on mellower terrain, rather than proper DH tracks, but that makes total sense when Merida has multiple longer travel e-bikes for more aggressive riding.