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.
HiThis is my 1975 Mercian(17975). I recently built it up mostly using bits from the garage. I took it it out for a spin yesterday and it is perfect! I have just bought some Nuovo Record front and rear mechs and a set of Strada cranks. As soon as I can source some chainrings I will be swapping th
"I took my new Mercian Audax out for it's maiden voyage today and it was a pure joy to ride I'm now looking forward to another 30 years of pleasure on the roads with my steel horse.
Dear all at Mercian Cycles, many thanks for my new Mercian frame, painted in my club colours, Thornton RC. I've now built it up and road tested it, a beautiful ride. Thanks again, Michael
Did I ever send you a picture of my Pro Lugless? If you want to post it on the Blog, be my guest. The way things are with the weather, it's the only bike I shall be riding! Seriously, if I had to give up all my bikes (ten - if you include the Anniversary) and keep one, it would be the Pro Lugless as
We have just released this new range of standard build bikes @mercianmechanic (Ray) has labelled the Wiglaf. This was the name of a early king of Mercia. The bikes are available in three sizes 52, 54, 56. The frames are built with Reynolds 631 O/S tubing with a hidden head set and carbon forks. The
My Strada Speciale is now fully built. I've not taken her for a spin yet as she'll not fancy the damp, salty roads. I'll wait for a really good day. The frame is truly splendid. You can see a full list of the parts used in the build on my flickr photostream - http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjroma
