Merida NINETY-SIX 8000

Best Mountain Bikes

This One of Our Selection of Best Mountain Bikes 2022. SMERIDA NINETY-SIX 8000 is an affordable mountain bike, perfect for being your first bicycle for hitting the off-road. It is well-equipped, good-looking and incredibly easy to maintain.

Merida NINETY-SIX 8000

Straight away, the MERIDA NINETY-SIX 8000 stands out from the crowd. Its silhouette with a super-low front and high seat tube is strongly reminiscent of an XC racer. The elegant colour scheme is consistent throughout and perfectly matches the 120 mm RockShox SID Ultimate fork – a killer look! The RockShox SIDLuxe Ultimate shock drives 100 mm travel. Like the Specialized Stumpjumper, the NINETY-SIX dispenses with the additional pivot between the seat and chainstays, relying on flexstays instead to save weight. Our top-spec MERIDA NINETY-SIX 8000 in size L tips the scales at 11.66 kg. The cables and brake lines are cleverly routed through the top cap and run straight into the frame. Unfortunately, clever isn’t always synonymous with tidy: in fact, the cockpit area still looks crammed, with the front brake line and lockout remote cables dangling off the bars like high-voltage power lines. In this regard, bikes like the Specialized Stumpjumper offer much tidier solutions. The frame has enough room for two large water bottles and features a mount on the top tube, which can be used to store two CO2 cartridges and a spare tube using the optional adapter. The position of the brake levers is unfortunate: if the bars turn all the way in during a crash, they’ll hit the carbon frame and damage the paint – not good! Here it would make sense to use a steering stop system like the one you get with the Trek Top Fuel and Canyon Neuron.