Merida Bikes?
 

Has anybody ever heard of this company? I didn't hear about them until two days ago when I was browsing for random bicycle brands. Went to their website, and despite the fact that they're based out of Taiwan, their web design looks to be of pretty high quality.

Does anybody have any experience with their bikes? Good? Bad?

Merida is the second largest bicycle company in the world (after Giant). They sell bicycles under their own name in many countries. In the USA, they are labeled "Specialized". Merida is part owner of the Specialized company.

I'm not sure what your slur about Taiwan is all about.

They contract manufacture for many "known" brands. Do a search on BF this has been covered.

Did a search on the forum, couldn't really find a thread that I thought I could find this information in just by using the titles, and I wasn't going to browse every thread in the 13 pages of results the search gave me, sorry.

Also, this is why I mentioned Taiwan:

Headquarter
Merida Industry Co., LTD.
P.O. Box 56
Yuanlin Taiwan R.O.C.

Tel.: +886-4-8526171
Fax: +886-4-8527881


This is right on their website: http://www2.merida-bikes.com/

Additionally, after a google search on Merida + Specialized, I'm not sure that they actually ARE Specialized here in the US. I did read however that they make frames for Specialized though: http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/in.../t-350317.html

People in that archived thread even state that its a nice Taiwanese company.

Merida owns nearly half of Specialized (just enough to not be the majority owner), and makes probably most if not all of the production bikes.

Do they sell their own branded (Merida) bicycles in the US? Because I haven't seen their brand anywhere before. Not on the internet, and not on the streets.

Not in the US, but they do elsewhere.

You aren't going to see a Specialized frame as a Merida though.

They are rather popular here in Australia as branded Merida bikes.

Alright, guess that clears things up for me, thanks guys.

They sponsor Pro MTB teams in Europe (Woman's World Champion road for Merida) as well as Continental teams. They sell Merida branded bikes there and in Asia.

The previous comments about Specialized are correct.

Popular in India too as till recently we were getting only Trek and Merida, of which Trek was a bit more expensive.

Correct. They sell Meridas in the UK but they are not rebranded Specialized frames as far as I know. They are definitely not high-end stuff.

Pretty popular here in Korea, they make some damn nice bikes, although to keep in perspective, 99% of the ones I've seen are MTB, lots of high end ones. Haven't seen many roadies, there just aren't many of us here apparently... :(

Merida is really close to a spanish word for *poo-poo*

Most Specialized bikes sold in the USA are not real high-end stuff, either.

Scattante (the Performance house brand) is really close to the English word for poo-poo.

Most bikes of any brand are not high end

most road bikes are high end compared to everything else out there




other than this silly semantic fight, their offerings got good reviews in some British magazine reviews of their frames; anyone who makes Specialized bikes can't be that bad.

Merida bikes are fine bikes for the price. They will give you about the same quality as similarly priced Giant bikes.

I see lots of Merida road bikes here in France and they look quite decent.