I think if you get a good one they are very good. But there has been a lot of frame cracking. Just put in 'airborne frame failures' and you get quite a lot of traffic and some bad stories re warranty. Early Merlins were pretty grim at times too. Gary Helfrech when at Litespeed seemed to get the frame failures right down. Gen 1 (year 1) Marin tis were Merlin. Huge problems of seat tube failure. Second year, went to Litespeed, and the frames are bombproof. Anyone else with perspectives?