Mohoric won the World Championship with a Merida Silex prototype

Matej Mohoric's victory was much celebrated by Merida, the bike brand that supplies Bahrain-Victorious and thus obtained an unexpected repercussion on its next launch, which seems to be imminent, the new generation of its Silex gravel bike, which, after all, it seems that the work of the Taiwanese firm has been optimal.

Merida fine-tunes its new Silex at the Gravel World Championship

Under the curious decoration of the bike with which Matej Mohoric won with absolute dominance in the Gravel World Championship, one could guess the word Silex, the name of Merida's specific gravel model. However, the Silex we know today has been, since its creation, a bike with a more adventurous philosophy, especially in terms of geometry.

However, Merida seems to have completely changed the philosophy in the prototype used by the Slovenian and that, at first glance, opts for the more racing side of gravel and is that this new Silex has a b with a longer top and a clearly lower head tube than the current Silex. A sporty look that is reinforced by the reduction of the large sloping that the current model has.

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Of course, like any self-respecting modern bike, the Silex guides the cables completely inside the bike, which together with a certain profiling of its tubes, nothing particularly radical, surely achieves some aerodynamic gain.

On the other hand, the other point that catches the eye right from the start is the junction of the seat stays with the front triangle. In this case, they extend slightly in front of the seat tube, merging into a protrusion under the top tube where many brands usually place the wedge used to fix the seat tube. In fact, in the television broadcast of the World Championship the commentators were talking about whether Mohoric would miss being able to mount the dropper post that won him Milan-San Remo and that he has continued to use at some points during the road season.

From what was seen on TV, it also appears that Merida has upgraded the wheel arches to accommodate larger balloon tyres, although Mohoric made do for this race with Continental Terra Speed 40 balloon tyres, an ideal choice for dry and mostly compact ground as well as performing well on the asphalt that was the protagonist of much of the central section of the course.

Speaking of the setup used by Mohoric, the use of a Shimano Dura-Ace instead of the GRX, Shimano's specific groupset for gravel, is striking. Specifically, he used a dual chainring combination with a 50/34, a development only suitable for tough guys like the Slovenian.