Merida Mission CX Force Edition 2020

Merida's Mission CX Force Edition is a top-quality cyclo-cross bike that's ready to race straight out of the box. It'll turn its hand to fast gravel riding and winter riding too, if you're looking for something more than just a dedicated race bike.

Let's dive right into the ride. The Mission CX is designed as a cyclo-cross race bike and as such it's not going to mollycoddle you over rough ground: this is a bike for attacking stuff on. It's at its best when you're sprinting up a steep, loose gravel climb or you're finding a fast line through a swoopy bit of singletrack. It's a direct, responsive bike that goes where you point it.

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You can't expect a 33mm tyre to offer you much in the way of suspension, and the frame and fork are reasonably stiff, but there's give in the carbon bar, especially in the drops, and the seatpost offers a bit of relief too. On tarmac and more graded gravel surfaces it feels fast and pretty composed; once things start to get lumpier then you'll be feeling it.

On rougher, bumpier surfaces – say a dried out grassy bridleway – the lack of compliance can easily rob you of speed if you're not on your game. But attack the surface – hands on the tops, plenty of power through the pedals, pavé style – and the Merida skips on nicely.

Basically: whatever you're doing, the bike feels better if you're going after it. And given that it's designed to be ranted round a park for an hour with you at your absolute limit, that's entirely how it should be.

The carbon frame – which Merida says contains a 'Nano Matrix' for extra impact resistance – is very stiff through the bottom bracket, and paired with a full carbon fork that feels equally purposeful. It's worth mentioning the sparkly blue paint job here, which is lovely.

Built up in this guise, the bike weighs just 7.9kg without pedals. That's pretty impressive: the same as the mid-range, rim-brake Merida Scultura I race crits on. That lack of mass means it feels very lively and it responds well to being flicked from line to line.

Steering response is very good: the bike isn't twitchy, but neither does it have the relaxed feel of more gravel/distance-orientated bikes. With a head tube angle of 72 degrees and a seat tube angle of 74 degrees, that's not really surprising.

That racy feel sometimes means that the bike feels a bit front heavy on steeper, more technical stuff; it's not particularly at home on trails that you'd normally hit on your full-suspension mountain bike, but you wouldn't really expect it to be. You'll get down them, but you won't enjoy it all that much.

> Your guide to cyclo-cross racing

So who does it suit best? Well, if you're looking for a dedicated cyclo-cross bike for the race season then it's certainly that. Out of the box it's ready to go; the only thing I'd change (and did) would be to take out the inner tubes and set the bike up tubeless. Oh, and if you're actually good at CX racing and you might change wheels because you've got a spare set in the pit lane, then you'll need to ditch the daft thru-axles, with their impossibly fiddly recessed handles that are impossible to use when muddy, and fit some standard DT Swiss ones or something.

Cyclo-cross racing is a fairly small market; if you're just after something that you can ride fast on mixed surfaces then the Merida is that too. It'd be a fast bike around something like the Dirty Reiver, for example, where the vast majority of the ride is on graded gravel; you might lose some time on the few technical sections but the light, fast Merida would easily make up for that on the better-surfaced bits.

It would also be a good choice if your gravel riding is broken up by long sections of tarmac, which is the picture across a lot of the UK. This is a bike that weighs the same as the road bike I race crits on; aside from a bit of extra drag from the tyres it's not going to hold you back much. Just bear in mind that the direct feel of the bike, and the fact that it responds best when you're going hard, can be a bit of a drawback on longer rides where you're having to preserve your effort a bit.

The stock tyres – Maxxis All Terrane 700x33 – are decent race all-rounders, but if you wanted to use the Merida as more of a general purpose gravel bike then there's room in the frame for something like a Schwalbe G-One Allround in a 40mm width, which would be both quicker on the tarmac and a bit more cushioned off it. The Maxxis tyres aren't bad at all though: there's lots of grip on byways and they're quick enough on the road sections. There isn't masses of mud around at the moment (for a change) but on the few slippery bits I've found the tread bites pretty effectively.

Stick some big-chamber slicks on instead and the Misson CX would easily keep up on a winter club run: you'd barely be giving anything away to a road race bike, and you can spec bigger tyres to deal more effectively with winter detritus.

The bike has hidden mudguard mounts, which Liam pooh-poohed when he reviewed the Ultegra build of this bike, but I can't really see the problem: they don't add any weight and they're barely noticeable, so there's no reason not to have them and they make the bike more versatile. You could race the 'cross season until February and then slap some slicks and 'guards on and hit the tarmac for some base miles.

The tyres are rolling on a set of Vision SC40 Disc wheels, which put in a faultless performance during testing. They're easy to set up tubeless, they put up with some pretty heavy hits on the more technical stuff and they're well behaved on the road. The 19mm rim width is good for anything from a 28mm road tyre up to the biggest rubber the frame will hold.

Force groupset

Merida has specced this bike with SRAM's Force eTap AXS groupset, which brings road wireless shifting down a tier from the top-dollar Red groupset. It's on the Merida in a 1x configuration, and for 'cross racing that would absolutely be my choice: the front derailleur is often the first thing to fill up with mud, and the single 38-tooth chainring and 10-33t 12-speed cassette give a range of gears that's perfect for an hour of pain, with reasonable gaps between them.

If you're aiming to point the Merida at longer loops, though, then you might find the stock gearing a bit limiting; on a four-hour ride that was about half and half tarmac and various other surfaces there were occasions where I wished I had another gear at either end.

> Read our review of SRAM's Force eTap AXS Wide groupset here

You can play with the chainring and cassette to tweak the range, but those aren't especially cheap components to swap out if you're not happy with what's supplied. The Mission CX has a mount for an AXS front mech if you wanted to widen the bike's range even further by putting on a double chainset. That's super-easy when there aren't any wires to poke through the frame. But again: spendy.

Functionally, the SRAM Force eTap AXS groupset is excellent. You have a gear lever each side, and in this 1x configuration you just click the lever corresponding to the way you want the mech to go: left to go up the cassette, and right to go down. It takes a bit of getting used to if you're accustomed to Shimano/SRAM/Campagnolo gears because you don't normally use your left hand to push the rear mech. But once you've done the learning bit it's easy.

The shift quality is flawless: it's crisp and precise across the whole cassette, with no variation in the feel of the shift. With a mechanical groupset you tend to know when you've run out of gears on a climb as the small differences in the lever feel give it away; with an electronic groupset it's often rather unwelcome news as all the changes feel the same.

The battery in the rear mech has a claimed life of 60 hours and takes less than an hour to charge; the charger is small and USB-powered, so if you were on a big adventure you could take the charger and charge it from a battery or wall socket. In normal use it's not an issue, although it's good practice to charge the battery before a long ride.

Value

It's a high-spec bike with a high-ticket price, and in terms of value you'd have to say it's not the best out there.

> Buyer’s Guide: 14 of the best cyclo-cross bikes

Although you can easily spend more – the Specialized Crux Expert is £4,249 with the mechanical version of this groupset – Cube's Cross Race C:62 boasts a similar spec and weight for £500 less. We haven't tried that bike but we have reviewed the Vitus Energie CRX, which is excellent, and that bike is available with carbon race wheels, Zipp finishing kit and the same groupset for under three grand. It's hard to look past that in terms of value if you're a privateer racer.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed riding the Mission CX: it's a proper cyclo-cross race bike and it's light and engaging. It's versatile enough to be ridden well beyond the taped confines of a cyclo-cross course of a Sunday morning.

> Watch it in action here, in Merida’s video

Verdict

High-quality privateer 'cross racer that's fast and fun