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.
Many thanks again for renovating my 1960 Viking Severn Valley 531 frame. I have now rebuilt the bike - see attached pics - the original components are long gone and I set up the current configuration in the early 1980's: Specialized/Super Champion 27' wheels; Campagnolo Super Record chainset (Mavic
Hi my name is Andy and I now live in Sydney Australia, being Derby born and bred I used to own a Mercian Strada Speciale back in 80’s and eventually sold the bike in 1993. Upon reaching 50 I really wanted another for my birthday but money being tight I put an ad out on a Classic Bike Forum over here
This fantastic bike got me up Hardknott pass at the weekend - as well as Wrynose, Whinlatter, Kirkstone, Newlands and, only just, Honister. There was rain and a howling headwind by the time we got to Honister but the bike is a total joy and every inch was a pleasure (sort of), come rain or shine. I
We recently had a Tommasini Super Prestige frame and forks in for renovation and it was a complex paint finish, with a lot of processes and time for Mark and Rob in the sprayshop, so we thought you might like to see a bit of the process.
I just wanted to send a note of thanks for all the work you did in restoring my Trek 970 frame. It is truly beautiful. I’ve attached a picture so you can see it in it’s final form. You did an exceptional job on matching color and decal placement. I will recommend you to anyone I know who is interest
Before moving to the USA, I lived in South Africa. My 58 cm Strada Speciale was custom built for me and shipped to SA, in 1980 - Serial No. 46180 - 2, at the unbelievable price of 149 pounds stirling, including the extra for chromed front and rear ends!!
Now after 38 years, it was time for refurbish
