IN BRIEF
MERIDA is reopening its Speeder, the flat-bar bike it had been selling as a fitness machine, and sending it onto the trails. Tyre clearance goes from 35 to 50 mm, and the Speeder 500 leaves the factory on 45 mm Schwalbe G-One Allroad tyres — gravel tyres, not road tyres. The brand is also adding mounting points, and BikeRadar notes a head tube angle slackened to 71 degrees on every size except the XS. Four models make up the range, from €900 to €1,699 according to BikeRadar.
| Model | MERIDA Speeder 500 |
| Price | €1,699 (according to BikeRadar) |
| Frame | AL-A aluminium |
| Fork | MERIDA SILEX II CF2, carbon |
| Drivetrain | SRAM Apex single-chainring, 12-speed |
| Brakes | Tektro Orion M6020 |
| Tyres | 45 mm Schwalbe G-One Allroad |
| Maximum clearance | Up to 50 mm |
| Sizes | XS, S, M, L, XL |
There is a category of bike that is hard to name: the flat-bar machine that goes fast. Too stiff for a city bike, too tame for a mountain bike, it long sold under the soft label of “fitness”. MERIDA has been selling its own under the Speeder name for years. On 14 August, the Taiwanese brand redesigned it — and filed it somewhere else.
The Merida Speeder goes from 35 to 50 mm of tyre
This is the figure that changes everything else. BikeRadar sums the job up in a single sentence: “the new Speeder increases the tyre clearance to 50mm from 35mm”. The official Speeder 500 spec sheet confirms clearance “up to 50 mm”. Fifteen millimetres more, on a bike, is more than a spec-sheet detail: it is the difference between a machine that dreads gravel tracks and a machine that goes looking for them.
Nor does MERIDA stop at theoretical clearance. The Speeder 500 leaves the factory shod with 45 mm Schwalbe G-One Allroad tyres — a gravel tyre, with the tread to match, and not a road tyre widened for good measure. The bike is delivered ready for the terrain MERIDA now wants to see it on.
The geometry follows. BikeRadar notes a “slacker head tube angle, now 71 degrees for all but the XS frame”: the head angle opens up, which settles the bike and calms the steering when the surface turns rough. road.cc, for its part, notes that the top tube slopes more steeply, which leaves more seatpost showing — and a longer seatpost is comfort for free.
Mounts everywhere, including under the top tube
The other job is less spectacular, but it says the same thing. The new Speeder gains mounting points, and road.cc singles one out in particular: “more fixing points on the underside of the top tube”. The official Speeder 500 spec sheet, for its part, lists mounts for mudguards, a kickstand and a rack.
The rest of the Speeder 500 spec is consistent with that shift: a MERIDA SILEX II CF2 carbon fork — the SILEX being precisely the house gravel bike —, a SRAM Apex single-chainring 12-speed drivetrain, Tektro Orion M6020 disc brakes. Five sizes are offered, from XS to XL.
Four models, from €900
The range counts four bikes. BikeRadar gives the full grid: Speeder 500 at “£1,500 / €1,699”, Speeder 300 at “£1,000 / €1,150”, Speeder 200 at “£850 / €975” and Speeder 100 at “£800 / €900”. BikeRadar credits the 500 with an AL-A frame, and the other three with an AL-C frame. road.cc points out that the entry point is coming down: “the price of the Speeder 100 drops to £800”. Each model also comes in two frame shapes: BikeRadar writes that the Speeder exists “in top-tube and step-through variants”, and road.cc specifies that this step-through version is new across the whole range. On drivetrains, road.cc notes a “Shimano CUES U6000 11-spd” on the 300 and a “Shimano Essa 8-spd” on the 100.
Nine hundred euros for a new flat-bar bike able to swallow 50 mm tyres and to take mudguards and a rack: the positioning can be read without glasses. The positioning is aimed instead at the rider who wants a single bike to commute during the week and leave the tarmac on Sundays. That leaves the question of availability in France: as of 16 August, the official MERIDA spec sheet detailed the Speeder 500’s equipment while leaving the price field empty.
