Following Mercian’s 80th Anniversary Festival of Steel, we were delighted to welcome Eddie White and Cherie Pridham to our new factory.
Eddie White was a valued founding member of the Mercian-Bantel Team, riding with the team between 1968 and 1979. It was a particular pleasure to welcome Cherie, who took time out of her busy WorldTour schedule as Sports Director of UAE Team L’Imad to join Eddie for the visit.
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.
At the grand age of 72, Douglas completed what he describes as one of the toughest rides hes done. Starting at 4.30am and finishing 13 hours later, there was perhaps more elevation than had been planned for! In Douglas' words: "I have ridden quite extensively in the Alps, the Pyrenees and other mountainous parts of Europe in the past few years and tackled many of the most famous climbs but without doubt I think L’Eroica is one of, if not the hardest day I have spent on a bike. Would I do it again, I don’t think so. Am I glad I did it, you bet I am"
Having just collected his new Pro Lugless from us, Chris headed straight down to France with his brother for a nice little run. Ticking off the Velodyssee along the French atlantic coast he turned into northern Spain, ending up in Cape Finisterre - the 'end of the world' and the final stop for many pilgrims on the Camino. Returning back to catch a ferry from Santander, Chris covered over 1600miles and climbed an estimated 65000 feet.
Alan recently completed the 75km Eroica in Valkenburg, Holland, on his 1996 stars'n'stripes King of Mercia. Riding with a pal, they had great chat with other riders, and enjoyed the splendid food (although it didn't hit the heights of the Chianti Eroica!)
Not all snowy rides are as fun as Bob and Jen's last summer in the mountains of Norway.
Maybe now's the time to miss out some less fun winter miles, take your bike off the road and welcome the return of spring with a freshly painted frame.
My name is Sam and I live in Chesterfield in North Derbyshire. I have experimented with other frame materials but never having found anything which recreates the same level of interest and satisfaction as steel.
My K o M high up above the reservoir in Malibu Canyon in California in Spring of 1957. I had ordered it, 24 inch and finished in RAF blue, directly from Mercian in about April 1955 whilst a student at Nottingham U. and living in Risley, Derbys.
Forty years ago, Jamie Hargreaves’ dad, Phil, along with friends, embarked on an ambitious journey from Derby, England, to Derby, Australia. This doesn’t sound that impressive until you add in that he cycled the entire journey.
