1946 was a special year: Paul Smith was born in Nottingham, Mercian Cycles was founded in Derby. Paul was a very good cyclist in his youth and rode Mercian bikes - his fondness for Mercian has remained, and the feeling is mutual. To help celebrate our 80th anniversaries, Paul has designed two special limited edition bikes, which were launched at Selfridges in early September.
After many months of effort, and a tremendous grant to help us on our way from Erewash Council, we launched three new eBike models at the end of August.
A great crowd attended our Festival of Steel ride out in August, to help celebrate the 80th anniversary of Mercian. Many thanks to Belper Cycling Club, and Andre Toczek in particular, for helping organise the event and doing a great job on the 4 rides. And a big thankyou to all those who attended the event - we estimate approx 300 people turned up to help us mark the day, but give it a few months and the estimate will have grown to 3000!
Congratulations to Jill Scott for completing her epic 388 mile "Coming Home" challenge, raising almost £500k for Sport Relief! Mercian were proud to help.
We doff a very large cycling cap to Greg James, who finished his 8-day pan-UK challenge in Edinburgh on Friday raising over £4.5mln. What an incredible amount!
After six decades Mercian Cycles workshop has moved.
Through the years there were a number of locations in Derby for the shop, the frame building workshop and sprayshop. But since about 1965 the frame building and painting was taking place at the Pontefract Street workshop.
Framebuilder Tim took the chance to head out on the Ventura All-road bike to go and pick up some dropouts from Bear Frame Supplies. An ideal opportunity to capture some video of the custom steel Ventura out on the gravel trails of the Derbyshire Peak District.
The Paul Smith bikes both track and road for though,s people who have not seen one is a special edition made for the world famous designer Sir Paul Smith. If you travel the world you would have seen these bikes in some of his boutiques from London, Hong Kong , Russia and America to name a few. They
Super 953 . This is a great set of super lightweight stainless steel tubes made by Reynolds it rivals titanium for weight. Keep a eye out for our new web site ( on line very soon ) for prices. We have just built to order a Very special track frame for a discerning customer of ours which will be sent
The workshop is extremely busy at the moment and here we have a few frames ready for the final top coat. Please note the new lime green flamboyant in the foreground which has a very bright finish and the Gios blue Mercian in the back ground. These frames will be making there way to customers later i
We do a lot of wheel repairs both for the customer and trade alike. Re-building into a new rim is a popular request ( the rims are softer nowadays for certain ). Overhauling a hub is also done on a frequent basis. Please remember to grease the hubs as often as you can. It will prolong your hubs life
We have a large range of racks in stock both front and rear. Topeak and Tubus being the main two which customers specify when ordering a complete bike. When you order your complete bike why not have the rack sprayed to match your frame. When they have been done the overall effect is quite pleasing.
Something a little different today. This is Derek's one of the frame builders new ! ! ! ! car its a 1947 ( I think he said ) Frogeye sprite. Derek has a love for open top motors and this one certainly is open to the world. He took me for a spin in it the other day and its like riding a skate board w
Here we have a Vincitore special shell being mocked up and worked on by Derek. As you can see from the picture the spear points are welded to the shell first then the tubes are brazed into place this helps stiffen the frame . The plates on the chainstays still have to be cut into shape at this point
Another lovely bike here which will soon be picked up by a long time Mercian fan . Its a Vincitore special built with Reynolds 853 pro team tubing. This one is built with Campagnolo record equipment and finished with Profile carbon bars and Easton wheels.
We had this Velocita in today which requires a little work (bearings in the bottom bracket are noisy) so while the going was good took a shot of it in the work stand. Campagnolo record equipment with carbon Mavic wheels very nice indeed.
Because of our work with Paul Smith we have a range of exclusive clothing made by the world famous fashion designer. We have a good range of T shirts and Jerseys available. If you fancy a designer T shirt with our early advertisement please call our shop to order. These are a strictly limited item.
Just in the stock room today and found these talk about the good old days. We only have corti (small) so do not bombard the shop with requests for Campagnolo toe clips. I can remember buying my first pair of these and bolting them to my Super record track pedals . Then going for a ride to make a mar
