Doing The Double - Tri vs Roadie
TopTube was mildly surprised when two boxes turned up at our secret underground bunker. We’d been expecting something from Merida but we weren’t sure exactly what. Over the course of a few hours, the boxes slowly emptied themselves and we found ourselves staring at the Merida Warp 9 TT/tri bike and the Scultura EVO 907 roadie.
Warp 9
In a world of carbon everything, Merida has sided with aluminium for their tri bike. It’s an odd mix of high and low end parts attached to a frame that’s nicely finished off with the welds blending seamlessly into each tube.
The brakes are bottom of the bucket FSA’s but we’re okay with that because tri bikes were designed for going, not slowing. The aerobars are the Vision alloy staple, which is a common fixture on just about everything, while the rest of the gruppo is SRAM Force with the carbon upgrade for brake levers and shifters.
Finally, we come to the cranks and the wheels – 2008 Zipps thank you very much and FSA’s carbon crank with a great big crono TT ring attached.
The Zipps we love (we would have preferred tubbies, but we figure the customers this rig is aimed at will mostly want the clinchers). The FSA crank, on the other hand, we don’t love. It’s never been our favourite crank as it’s prone to making nasty creaks, but once you attach that big aero crono chainring to it, we gave up caring as it looks the business.
Lastly, TopTube really likes that Merida went to the trouble of fitting a colour coded Arione tri saddle. Most people find them comfortable and even if you didn’t, you’d leave it fitted as it matches the bike – so important for the fashion-conscious, podium-hunting age grouper.
All up TopTube gave the eclectic mix of parts a thumbs-up given the bike is race ready and looks really fast (which we all know is what our sport is really about).
Scultura EVO 907-COM
The Scultura is a more traditional carbon road bike – carbon frame, Ultegra SL gruppo (basically a de-specced 08 DuraAce set up) and a nice set of Mavic’s Ksyrium Elite wheels.
We’re going out on a limb here to state that the parts bolted onto the Scultura are about the best bang for buck selection and we’re prepared to back this up in a few sentences.
The Ultegra SL gruppo is about half-way between Dura Ace and Ultegra but it comes at an Ultegra price (you get the DA crank which is the bit we love).
The Mavic Elite spec wheels are one of our favourites for ride quality. TopTube has never been a fan of Mavic’s high end wheels (anything with an alloy/carbon spoke) as we find them quite flexy for the fuller figured rider, however, Mavic’s lower end steel spoked wheels we really like. Top it all off with a very colour co-ordinated Prologo saddle and we like the finished product.
