Who doesn’t love a good ol’ trip down a mountain biking* memory lane, hey? Let’s look back over the last 50 years of Merida…
*okay, the MTBs don’t appear until 1980 but we can’t let that little fact get in the way of some alliteration
Merida: “This year Merida celebrates its golden jubilee. While the challenging times remain, we can’t and don’t want to ignore the fact that we have been around for a long time. You only turn 50 once, so to honour our half a century in the cycling industry, we have created a gallery showing some key ‘milestones’ since Merida was founded in 1972.”
Potted history of Merida
It all started with an infamous sign attached to the workshop door of a bicycle shop in the US, one stating; “we don’t repair poor quality Taiwanese bicycles”. This was seen by engineer Ike Tseng, who was visiting the US at the time, triggering the desire in him to turn this around and improve the reputation of bicycles ‘Made in Taiwan’.
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Ike was a talented engineer and a visionary who had an obsession with quality. It was this obsession that led him to set up a bike factory in 1972, determined to improve the reputation of Taiwanese bicycles and engineering. Merida’s position of controlling its production sets it apart from a lot of its competitors, who rely on third-party production facilities.
Over the years, Merida turned from a factory that offered its production facilities and solutions to other bike brands into a brand in its own right.
With one of the most advanced production facilities in the world of bicycle production based in Taiwan, paired with a R&D centre in Germany, Merida has been able to produce a huge range of bikes. With everything from kids’ bikes going all the way to World Tour and Mountain Bike World Cup winning race machines.
Merida remains family-run, with Ike Tseng’s son Michael in control of the business.
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