Merida Scultura Endurance 4000 review

Coming in at around a quarter of the price of the flagship Merida Scultura Team, the Scultura Endurance 4000 is an entry-level, endurance-based model.

It may not have quite the same caché as the racier Scultura versions, but it’s an excellent ride, good value for money and the spec is very well considered.

Its £2,250 / €2,499 / AU$3,199 price is the same as last year, and considering recent bike-price rises and the upgrade to the latest 12-speed Shimano 105 R7100 groupset, that’s a commendable achievement that compares favorably to rival endurance bikes.

Merida Scultura Endurance 4000 frame

Merida’s designers have created a great-looking frame, especially where the flattened top tube morphs neatly into the thin, fairly flat seatstays. It’s very neat and elegant.

Merida says the profiles in the seatstays and the chainstays act like a leaf spring to enhance ‘the natural compliance of the frame material’.

The frame and fork are designed to accommodate mudguards, with dedicated mounting points – even with reasonably wide 32mm tyres fitted.

This is an excellent call for those seeking to run wider tyres and stay clean doing so, and renders this Scultura a genuine year-round bike you can take out on a group ride without throwing road muck all over your riding buddies.

However, you might need to tweak the stays to fit the front mudguard, or opt for Merida’s own, because the fittings are inside the fork blades, about a third of the way up (rather than the traditional position near the dropout).

The rear of the Scultura Endurance features a removable seatstay bridge and a drilling in the bottom of the seat tube to mount the mudguard. It all seems very well thought-through.

The frame uses a BB71 press-fit bottom bracket.

Merida Scultura Endurance 4000 geometry

In some ways, the geometry of the Scultura Endurance splits the difference between that of the Specialized Roubaix SL8 Sport and Basso’s Venta R (the two bikes tested alongside it).

The wheelbase is 1,001mm – longer than the Basso, but shorter by a fraction than the Roubaix SL8 in a size 54cm – and the same is true of the 418mm chainstays; they're much longer than the Basso’s but a tad shorter than those on the Roubaix.

At 177mm, the head tube is a good deal taller than the Roubaix’s 122mm, although the latter’s riser bar adds 25mm to that and is within a couple of millimetres of the Basso.

The standard Scultura 4000, with a racier geometry, has a 155mm head tube as well as a shorter wheelbase.

The frame angles are racy steep, with a 73-degree head angle and 73.5-degree seat tube angle, which together promise pretty lively handling. This is also within half a degree of the standard Scultura.

Merida Scultura Endurance 4000 specification

Full Shimano 105 in all its 12-speed, hydraulic-braking guise is at the heart of things – smooth shifting, a wide range of gears and, with 12 ratios, jumps between gears are kept to a minimum.

I also like the size and the shape of the lever hoods, which form a handy and comfortable handhold (for me, at least).

Braking is powerful, controlled and with a one-finger-light action.

The Merida’s braking has an added bonus in the form of CNC-machined cooling fins mounted on the frame and fork, which Merida says give “35 per cent less heat build-up and faster temperature reduction for stable braking performance”.

I suspect they’re of minimal use in the UK given our lack of Alpine-like descents, but when zooming down a 2,000m-high mountain, they might come into their own.

Subjectively, I also think they look cool – although it’s fair to say other bike brands don’t bother with such devices and don’t seem to suffer as a result.

The cockpit and the rest of the components are pretty much what you’d expect on a bike at this price: an own-brand aluminium bar and stem pairing, Merida’s Comp SL saddle and a carbon Merida Expert setback seatpost.

All are acceptable choices on paper, with a multi-tool housed under the saddle an added bonus.

The headset is a dedicated design, with the cables and hoses routed through it. It’s extremely neat and might deliver some aerodynamic benefit, but it’s yet another non-standard component that makes replacing it more awkward.

The wheels have reasonably wide alloy tubeless-ready rims and are paired with tubeless-ready tyres.

The 32mm Maxxis Re-Fuse tyres have a 60 TPI casing and a Maxx Shield puncture-protection layer. I get the impression these major on toughness rather than suppleness, although their inflated 34mm+ width on the rims takes the edge off bad roads.

That said, I think the frameset, which exhibits a high-quality finish, would benefit further still from something such as the 32mm Bontrager R3 Hard-Case Lite TLR or the Pirelli P Zero Race TLR.

Either of these, and a few others from our best road tyres buyer’s guide, could improve the ride quality of the Scultura even more.

Going wider and tubeless would enable you to run the tyres at a lower pressure for extra suppleness, grip and even more comfort; a win-win without too much expenditure.

That said, if you are mainly using the Scultura for commuting on poor surfaces, where durability and puncture resistance may outweigh all-out speed and suppleness, the Maxxis tyres are a pretty decent option.

The Scultura is priced very competitively. It's cheaper than the Specialized Roubaix SL8 Sport (£3,000 / $3,500 / €3,800), Basso Venta R (£2,999 / $3,399 / €2,849) and the similarly specced Canyon Endurace CF7 (£2,349 / $2,399 / €2,499).

Merida Scultura Endurance 4000 ride impressions

While the Scultura Endurance 4000 is clearly an endurance bike, it isn’t a sedate machine.

The reasonably short wheelbase and steep frame angles suggest the handling is going to be pretty lively – and it is. While the head tube isn’t race-bike low, it’s not sit-up-and-beg tall either, so you can get into a quite aggressive position if you want to put the hammer down.

If you do, the Merida rewards you. There was no sensation that my power was being wasted and that pretty chunky frame is stiff in all the right places – notably the head tube and bottom bracket – so there’s no obvious flex even during all-out sprints and out-of-the-saddle climbs.

At around 9.03kg, it’s a reasonable weight for the money without being super-light and the wheels make up a good chunk of that mass. However, apart from on my steepest local climbs, that are well into double-figure gradients, I was never really aware of it.

My chosen climbing style is to sit back in the saddle and spin, which I was able to do comfortably thanks to the 1:1 ratio bottom gear – it's not quite as low as the Specialized with its 34x36t bailout gear, but likely low enough for the vast majority of people. I still found it equally rewarding for harder climbing efforts.

Descending is confidence-inspiring too, although I didn’t feel as natural throwing it around as the shorter, more aggressive Basso Venta R.

The brakes help here – with one bit of emergency braking proving the worth of the excellent hydraulic brakes even on a dampish road.

The Merida’s steep-for-an-endurance-bike head angle means the steering is consistently pretty lively without ever veering into twitchiness.

The wide-range gearing, and the balance of stiffness and comfort, make this ideal for day-long rides over variable surfaces. I tackled light grit and gravel rides without issue, and you could fit wider gravel tyres if you want to get a bit more adventurous.

It’s hard to evaluate just how much the tube profiles are having the promised leaf-spring comfort-boosting effect, but even with tough (rather than supple) tyres, the Merida is very comfortable.

As a rider who values comfort over performance, this is a real plus.

Merida Scultura Endurance 4000 bottom line

Merida has delivered an excellent long-distance machine at a very attractive price.

Shimano 105 R7100 is as good a groupset as many will ever need, with 12 ratios, smallish jumps, good shifting and great braking.

The bike’s long-distance comfort is excellent, although better tyres would help further, and the ability to fit mudguards is a real boon, making it a great long-distance commuter and year-round bike.