Heya,

I came across this Merida MTB with, what seems to me, a carbon frame with mostly XTR parts. What's the story behind this? Is it any good? I have never seen a, what seems to be a 90ties carbon MTB frame. (Sorry for the blur-o-vision, I'll try and take better pictures if it would make any sense for further investigation)

xtr hubs - lx v-brakes - zoom saddlepost

zoom stem

str RD

xtr front mech and crankset

Carbon tubes glued to aluminum lugs. That was a common method of construction back in that 90's era. Pretty much every manufacturer had a road bike built using this construction method. MTB's are more rare, but Trek and Giant both had MTB's built using this method back in the early - mid 90's.

I have a Merida Al bon which IS consisting of aluminium and steel tubes bonded together . So this type is construction very durable, my 1992 Merida Albon despite not being titanium is 32 years and is solid. This bike should be bulletproof as well and it is from 1993, introduction year of the XTR M900

Should one be worried about the integrity of these frames, since they are quite old at this point?
Also, since I have no idea, would this bike be considered "valuable"? I presume at least the XTR groupset is kinda nice.

No, you shouldn't be worried about the integrity of tehse frames since they were rock solidly built. Here is my Merida Albon aluminium front triangle and rear 4130 chromoly molydenium stays and set stays bonded into it , it is already 32 years old and it has never failed me and it is very robustly built

good to know thanks. Would that bike considered valuable or desireable in the scheme of 90ties MTBs?

It would be considered as a collector since it is the first time I heard someone speaking about it and I haven't seen many around.The older Trek ZX and the older Giant CFM are already collectible pieces.Valuable you need to check ebay to give you an approximative value of what it costs.