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.
Michael sent me this picture the other day of his King of Mercia in the back of his car. As you can see the S&S couplings have come in very handy. Please also note the belt drive with the Rohloff hub.
Just over the next week the shop will be short staffed. Jeff and myself are both off. I'm off to London to meet the Queen due to winning an award for the Online Frame Builder and Jeff has gone walking. Ray and Carlos Fandango are holding the fort and I'm sure you will be well looked after. If you w
Here is my 2007 King of Mercia at the Washington Pass Overlook in the North Cascade Mountains in the state of Washington. Since assembling the bike in June 2007, I have ridden it 11,000 miles--all in Washington, so far. Note that I chose the colors specifically to color-coordinate with the Bluemel
This is the third set of wheels. I went from sewups to clinchers in the 1980s. The new wooden rims give the bike a retro look. I may go back to sewups. Most people think the wooden rims are original! The Speedplay pedals are an upgrade. I still have the original Christophe Special toe clips with the
It's been a while now since I picked up my KOM and I should drop you a line to say a big thank you to you and all the gang. My wife Shirl and I just spent one of the happiest weeks of our lives touring Arran, Kintyre and Islay (Shirl also on her Mercian Audax). The KOM rides like a magic carpet (eve
Dear All
I attach photos of my two Mercians to show in your gallery if you can.
The fuchsia and grey cycle is a 1996 Audax Special of the peg frame. I built this using a mixture of parts including Brooks , Shimano, T.A., Cinelli and Campagnolo.
The blue Vincitore I had built for my 60th birthday in
Alan was a member of the South Pennine Road Club (@southpenninerc) roughly 35 years ago and is very good friend of mine. We raced together, never pulling up any trees with our times, but just enjoyed the whole bike scene. Alan has always had the best, while I was on a second hand Mercian King - he
