The loser of the test: Trek Rail 9.9.

I tried a rail and did not think there was anything wrong with it, as someone mentioned earlier, I would recommend changing the tires as bontrager tires get very nervous at a little speed and especially if it is a bit chunky.
 
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I've been riding a 2020 Merida e160 9k for the last two years, and last night was my first ride on my new 2021 Trek Rail 9.8 XT. I swapped the fork for a Fox Factory e36 160 and the tyres for Maxxis Assegai and DHR, but otherwise left it standard.

First impressions: they are a lot more similar than I had expected.

I thought the Trek would descend with more confidence. If it does, it's hard to notice. Saying that, I set a PR down one of the local runs when I thought I was taking it easy, so maybe I'm underestimating the speed increase? The Trek doesn't feel lighter, and while I think it is more powerful, that's only really noticeable in certain situations.

I wasn't blown away by how much easier it was on a couple of long and occasionally steep road climbs. If anything, the assistance comes in at higher rider effort. The Trek's longer back end and additional low-cadence torque certainly makes a difference when climbing sets of stairs, making it trivially easy. And the run-on is incredibly handy when trying to avoid pedal strikes on step-ups. That said, I also struggled in a couple of technical climbing spots where the surge knocked me off line.

Overall the power delivery of the Bosch is certainly different. Just like everyone told me, it feels more like riding a bike with a motor, and less like you just got a lot fitter.

The Kiox is nice, I like you can customise it, I don't like that there's no easily glanceable battery level: it's moved to a phone style little icon with a %. Saying that, you can have range showing permanently if you want. The controller is weirdly huge and clunky. Having been warned about battery rattle, I moved the strap that secured the Merida's battery cover onto the Trek, so no change there. I think I could still hear battery rattle, so I may experiment with padding that out.

Overall, I'm glad to have a bike that works, and I'll certainly keep it, but I can absolutely see why the Merida is competitive in tests. This isn't a huge upgrade, except for the fact that it's not broken of course - not insignificant.

[Edited to add the year to the Rail]
 
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Interesting.
I just got the wife an E160 - 700 & am pretty impressed with it. I've only ridden it a few times for 5 minutes & not in anger yet but felt it was a lot more 'twitchy' than the rail & somewhat less stable. Since then however, whenever I ride my Rail it feels very sluggish turning & somewhat chopperish.
I had a similar experience years ago after driving on the LHS of the road overseas for only a week then returning home & taking 6 months to feel normal back on the RHS. Kind of like the sealegs experience getting back on dry land.
 
No matter what you think of the bike, it does appear Trek let one get away from them- somebody in Marketing was definitely asleep at the switch. Way back when I worked at Olin Ski Co., and if a reviewer got anything less than an absolutely perfect skis for their new models tests, heads rolled. Damned sloppy of them, especially if all it takes is a quick check and adjustment to avoid the rattling. And the tires got panned for the 2nd year in a row, so somebody wasn't paying attention to the reviews last year either...
 
Growmac said:
I've been riding a 2020 Merida e160 9k for the last two years, and last night was my first ride on my new Trek Rail 9.8 XT. I swapped the fork for a Fox Factory e36 160 and the tyres for Maxxis Assegai and DHR, but otherwise left it standard.

First impressions: they are a lot more similar than I had expected.

I thought the Trek would descend with more confidence. If it does, it's hard to notice. Saying that, I set a PR down one of the local runs when I thought I was taking it easy, so maybe I'm underestimating the speed increase? The Trek doesn't feel lighter, and while I think it is more powerful, that's only really noticeable in certain situations.

I wasn't blown away by how much easier it was on a couple of long and occasionally steep road climbs. If anything, the assistance comes in at higher rider effort. The Trek's longer back end and additional low-cadence torque certainly makes a difference when climbing sets of stairs, making it trivially easy. And the run-on is incredibly handy when trying to avoid pedal strikes on step-ups. That said, I also struggled in a couple of technical climbing spots where the surge knocked me off line.

Overall the power delivery of the Bosch is certainly different. Just like everyone told me, it feels more like riding a bike with a motor, and less like you just got a lot fitter.

The Kiox is nice, I like you can customise it, I don't like that there's no easily glanceable battery level: it's moved to a phone style little icon with a %. Saying that, you can have range showing permanently if you want. The controller is weirdly huge and clunky. Having been warned about battery rattle, I moved the strap that secured the Merida's battery cover onto the Trek, so no change there. I think I could still hear battery rattle, so I may experiment with padding that out.

Overall, I'm glad to have a bike that works, and I'll certainly keep it, but I can absolutely see why the Merida is competitive in tests. This isn't a huge upgrade, except for the fact that it's not broken of course - not insignificant.
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Hey Mate, could you add some details? What sizes of Merida and Trek do you have? If it's L, on the Trek you have much longer rich, 490 vs 460
Do you feel any difference? What is your height?
 
torabora851 said:
Hey Mate, could you add some details? What sizes of Merida and Trek do you have? If it's L, on the Trek you have much longer rich, 490 vs 460
Do you feel any difference? What is your height?
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We have a L rail 7 & L Merida E160 -700. The rail feels more reach to the bars whereas the Merida is slightly more upright. I'm 182 6ft-ish but my wife is shorter but with a longer body so both fit her well too. I don't notice the difference too much in riding position while riding uphill however the mulleted merida will get around tight corners that may stall the rail. The Bosch certainly has more power but the Shimano is plenty for me as I very rarely put it on turbo.

The handling on the merida is more nimble than the Rail. They are quite different bikes to ride I think. The rail feels more solid & stable on bermed type flow tracks however for our local advanced tracks which are steep twisty & rooty the Merida kicks the Rails arse. The merida feels like theres no back wheel whereas I feel now I have to drag the back wheel of the rail around tight corners. I'm finding I'm far more confident & faster on the merida (even with stock setup vs my upgraded Rail) so much so that I'm looking for a smaller rear wheel to mullet my rail.

The stock merida 700 over here in NZ was the same as the Rail 5 which has pretty budget componentry.
 
Doug Stampfer said:
We have a L rail 7 & L Merida E160 -700. The rail feels more reach to the bars whereas the Merida is slightly more upright. I'm 182 6ft-ish but my wife is shorter but with a longer body so both fit her well too. I don't notice the difference too much in riding position while riding uphill however the mulleted merida will get around tight corners that may stall the rail. The Bosch certainly has more power but the Shimano is plenty for me as I very rarely put it on turbo.

The handling on the merida is more nimble than the Rail. They are quite different bikes to ride I think. The rail feels more solid & stable on bermed type flow tracks however for our local advanced tracks which are steep twisty & rooty the Merida kicks the Rails arse. The merida feels like theres no back wheel whereas I feel now I have to drag the back wheel of the rail around tight corners. I'm finding I'm far more confident & faster on the merida (even with stock setup vs my upgraded Rail) so much so that I'm looking for a smaller rear wheel to mullet my rail.

The stock merida 700 over here in NZ was the same as the Rail 5 which has pretty budget componentry.
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Thank you, great review! It will be interesting how the mullet setup will affect the behavior of rail. If you will have experience please let me know :)
 
I have a 2020 merida e140 that I've been doing a lot of learning on. I knew I wanted a good technical climber to suit the tracks where I mostly ride. Tight switchbacks, big rocks and slabs, steep up and down. I've pushed the seat all the way forward to help on the climbs - this has been awesome. I ride some black rocky descents reasonably comfortably - I don't feel the need for a slacker ha, although I also don't feel the need to get down them as fast as possible either. I've been looking for a new bike for a while now, and not many have the sort of geometry I want - 65 / 66 ha and 77 / 78 sta, mullet for the steep descents (getting the bum lower) and short chainstays, reach of around 460 in size L. The e160 is still looking pretty good - especially because we have a good LBS. The 700 would be my pick too; it seems to be the best combo of price and componentry. It's only short on the STA - of course the reach would need to stretch out if that happened. Mondraker crafty / dusk is looking good too, but they don't sell anywhere near here.
 
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urastus said:
I have a 2020 merida e140 that I've been doing a lot of learning on. I knew I wanted a good technical climber to suit the tracks where I mostly ride. Tight switchbacks, big rocks and slabs, steep up and down. I've pushed the seat all the way forward to help on the climbs - this has been awesome. I ride some black rocky descents reasonably comfortably - I don't feel the need for a slacker ha, although I also don't feel the need to get down them as fast as possible either. I've been looking for a new bike for a while now, and not many have the sort of geometry I want - 65 / 66 ha and 77 / 78 sta, mullet for the steep descents (getting the bum lower) and short chainstays, reach of around 460 in size L. The e160 is still looking pretty good - especially because we have a good LBS. The 700 would be my pick too; it seems to be the best combo of price and componentry. It's only short on the STA - of course the reach would need to stretch out if that happened. Mondraker crafty / dusk is looking good too, but they don't sell anywhere near here.
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New Merida looks amazing, I love my eone-sixty 2018, but I am concerned about the range of new ep8 + 630battery. I read a few sources where people say that e8000 + 540 battery vs ep8+630 battery just 10% difference. And I definitely want more battery. Rails' 750 battery looks huge, but with the same weight as Merida looks an advantage for me.
 
torabora851 said:
New Merida looks amazing, I love my eone-sixty 2018, but I am concerned about the range of new ep8 + 630battery. I read a few sources where people say that e8000 + 540 battery vs ep8+630 battery just 10% difference. And I definitely want more battery. Rails' 750 battery looks huge, but with the same weight as Merida looks an advantage for me.
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for sure - we all have different needs; huge battery isn't one of mine. The over run feature on bosch does sound awesome :). Re the battery usage of the ep8 - I assumed this is just a different tune. More power or torque uses more battery. There seems to be some confusion there though - for example your choice isn't ep8 vs e8000; it's ep8 vs current bosch. I'd be happy with either at this point in time; that is with having to accept the potential reliability issues with e systems as a whole.

 
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Battery range isn't really a factor for me as most of my rides are only 10-14kms & in fact would prefer if batteries were sold in 200kwh cells so you could mix & match depending on the day. I do however notice the lack of Bosch 'boost' (I prefer to call it motor overrun) on the shimano. As the E160 seems to get more pedal strikes than the rail I do miss the ability to half pedal over obstacles.
Re components on the 700 the rear shock is great - as good as my DVO coil & really surprised how good the Marzocchi bomber fork is. In it's stock form it is as good as my yari/lyrik ultimate spec' fork with the exception being over the braking stutter bumps leading into a bermed dorner where it isn't as sensitive as the lyrik. If my wife & I were the same weight I'd probably do the coil conversion upgrade.
 
torabora851 said:
Hey Mate, could you add some details? What sizes of Merida and Trek do you have? If it's L, on the Trek you have much longer rich, 490 vs 460
Do you feel any difference? What is your height?
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I've got about 300 km on the Rail now, and I'm actually still pretty happy with my initial review.

I'm 180 cm and the bikes are both L. Bear in mind also that I swapped the Fox Factory e36 fork onto the Rail before I rode it, so that may alter things somewhat compared to the stock Zeb. Also, the Trek is a 2021, not 2022, so the reach is only about 5 mm longer than the Merida.

The bikes feel more similar to sit on than the figures would suggest . The Rail feels very, very similar around a carpark, perhaps a little longer, but nothing dramatic (I run the e160 stem lower than it came). You can feel the difference on the trail though, the front end of the Rail is harder to pick up over obstacles, it feels heavier, and it's more of a plough your way through kind of feel than the e160. That does translate to it also feeling more stable. Both bikes descend very well indeed, but I have noticed that I'm setting PRs on lots of local trails on the Rail while not even trying to push - it's definitely faster. Jury's out on whether it's more fun though.

Climbing is interesting. The Rail is a better technical climber - you can keep the front end down and retain traction on steeper stuff than the Merida could. I suspect this is a function of the longer front and longer stays, plus for silly stuff like stairs, the Bosch motor definitely has more torque at a wider cadence range than the E8000. I also feel it makes you work for that power. At very light rider input it doesn't have that 'magic hand pushing you along' feeling that the Shimano unit does. Put the bike in Turbo and the E8000 will waft you along on the limiter with almost no input. The Bosch definitely needs more effort before it matches you. The Bosch has way more overrun too: this is great most of the time, but also keeps trying to kill me. I'm sure I'll get used to it.

Side note - I'm getting way more pedal strikes on the Rail than I do on the Merida. I'm experimenting with more low-speed compression a bit more air. I might end up running in the higher suspension setting around here where there's a lot of pedalling.

So yeah, the Rail is a better climber, the Merida possibly (probably?) a more fun bike on the descents, but also not as quick. On the really tight stuff the Merida is superior because of the mullet and short back end, it turns in more quickly, whereas the Rail is heftier - very similar to my Enduro.

As for range, I'm still working it out. I think the Bosch system has more, but perhaps not as much more as I hoped. I'll report back on that.

The Merida will be up for sale shortly. I'll be sad to see it go, but can't justify keeping both.
 
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JP-NZ said:
Thanks @Growmac I'm 179cm and buying the 2022 Rail 9.8 in Medium. Reach on Medium is 456mm, Large is 491mm. The 2022 smart system models had a large increase in reach to accomodate the 750 battery.
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Geez, that's a huge increase! I'm kind of in the same predicament - I'm 180cm and usually go a large. 460 - 470 reach depending on the seat tube angle of course. Some large sizes are just too long, but then the mediums end up with low stack height and therefore handlebars way below seat height - doh!
 
urastus said:
Geez, that's a huge increase! I'm kind of in the same predicament - I'm 180cm and usually go a large. 460 - 470 reach depending on the seat tube angle of course. Some large sizes are just too long, but then the mediums end up with low stack height and therefore handlebars way below seat height - doh!
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Seems the new Trek Rail lacks M/L, Stash with same geometry has M/L
 
@Doug Stampfer @Growmac hey guys, what do you think which bike, Merida Eone-sixty or the new long Trek Rail(490 reach) better suits this type of trails? Looking at new Trek, but afraid to lose the playfulness of Merida, whereas sometimes feel a lack of stability.


 
Geez, awesome riding and great tracks! I can see strengths and weaknesses for both bikes there, just based on geo and wheels (mullet vs 29").

The merida looks better to me all the time. I have an e140 which is even more for the tight stuff because of different geometry. It's hard to beat the wheel base, reach, and wheel size (vs the rail). A bit steeper on the sta would be awesome. But that's for my riding style of course, which may have nothing to do with your riding style.

Reach seems to be getting longer. After 2 years I feel I'm getting into the reach on my e140 - 470mm. Although I came form a 26" so I think the 29" front makes a difference too. Now I think it is perfect and I'm right into it. I still have to consciously get forward though.

There is a cost to longer reach - less body movement. You're not able to move as far back or push your bike as far forward (going over drops etc).

It looks like it depends on what your focus is, or what your trails are like - a bit more stability vs a bit more maneuverability in the tight stuff. We have some killer switchbacks - not an issue if you can pivot on front or rear wheel (I can't).

There's a little steep black trail close by I've been running - I find my bum making contact with the back wheel on the more extreme steeps - kind of like your first track. Reach and rear wheel size would have an impact here - I'm glad for the smaller rear wheel and that the reach isn't longer. Although TT length comes into play there too - still an advantage on the merida (a bit shorter) for me.
 
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As someone who has been in the height range that is always between sizes, the 487mm reach Large for the 2022 Rails is going to be great. On the flip side I can see how this is not great for those who've been happy with the current reach size...
 
@torabora851 That looks like great riding, sweet trails!
I currently have a ‘22 Rail 9.8, previously had a ‘21 Rail 9, a ‘20 Rail 7, a Santa Cruz Bullit, and an intenseTaser MX…yeah, I have bicycle issues. The Bullit would thrive in your conditions, #1 choice the only downfall is the EP8 motor when compared to the Bosch. The ‘22 Rail is long and stable, an absolute rocket in your type of terrain. The ‘21 felt like a better all around bike, more versatile and cornered better. I’m not noticing much difference in the 750 battery vs the 625. My son still rides the ’20 Trek Rail 7 and we have similar battery usage. It’s hard to measure accurate battery usage, he’s 14 years old, 60 pounds lighter and strong as an ox..he definitely puts out more watts than I do.
 
I would go for the Rail on those tracks. They are really flowy. The Merida works for me on really steep, tight, make it or crap yourself off camber drop corners. The rail will kinda plough through a lot of that big rock stuff but is also surprisingly nimble although with more input from the rider.

For me it would be a hard call if I had to buy a new bike between the two. At the moment I am stil in the honeymoon period with the Merida as it's new & fresh & the brakes work really well, doesn't rattle or bang - is really really quiet compared to my creaking & groaning rail (3200 abusive kms) & doesn't buzz my arse on the steep drops. It also doesn't suffer from the hideous Trek colour schemes :devilish:

The treks over here are bloody expensive. I paid $7k NZ for my 2020 Rail 7 with another couple of grand in upgrades. (38 forks weren't fitted on stock bikes then so you had to settle of a 36 fork). I see today the 5 with crap components are $8500NZ & the 7 is $10K. In comparison the E160 is $8200NZ. Actually now that I've read what I've written & because I'm a tightarse the price would seal the deal. If I was to buy a new one it would be the Merida as the components are pretty much the same & way better value. I'm disregarding battery range, life & what brand motor the bikes have as I really just bought an emtb to get me to the top of the hills & the Merida makes me a better rider on the way down.
Don't get me wrong I still really like the Rail however I think the Merida is better for me.

Forums can actually be a curse for overanalysistic people so i feel your pain bro. I'm trying to get a law passed that bike shops have to have a fleet of demos of different sizes available at all times so we can actually try them for free before putting down big money.
 
It is a personal thing but when people write stability i read schoolbus.
Stability is what i do not want in a bike. In my opinion it comes from the rider.
Rail is a popular model but i do not care about was is trendy. For that money
there many bikes that are way better for having fun where i ride.
 
Doug Stampfer said:
Forums can actually be a curse for overanalysistic people so i feel your pain bro. I'm trying to get a law passed that bike shops have to have a fleet of demos of different sizes available at all times so we can actually try them for free before putting down big money.
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pre pandemic they did. Now they simply don't have to, which is a hastle
 
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