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.
Chris sent me this picture a few weeks ago now of his wife's and his bike on a day trip in Ireland. As you can see Susan's bike is one of the early twin lateral Miss Mercian frames. This is a couple of there large collection of Mercian frame's/bikes. His email is below :-
This is two of our Mercian'
Phil our frame finisher with his lads Ryan and Ben when they poped in the other day to have a look around. ( couldn't tell you time they came in though )
I'd like to say a big thank you for my Strada Speciale frameset. It is perfect. I have ridden it a little bit and it fits and rides beautifully. A very pleasant and smooth feel. A big compliment to your builders for such excellent workmanship! For your perusal, A photo of the completed bike is atta
I wanted to share with photos of my completed Mercian Olympic restoration. I'm really pleased with the way everything has turned out, despite some last minute glitches, but now everything is sweet, with great road manners. Its got pride of place in my collection and gets used for sunny Sunday jaunts
As promised here's a few shots of the professional.
It's a mix of old and new school parts, looks straight out of the 80's from a distance...
Gently-used old school campy record pedals and long-reach brakes.
NOS super record front derailleur, seatpost, and late-vintage, non-fluted super record crank
Ive waited years to be able to have a Mercian. Thanks for the brilliant work of art that you have created for me.
Already covered a couple of hundred miles in the first couple of weeks and its perfect. The clover lugs have given me something to look at as Ive climbed up one or two of the famous Pea
The first picture you see is an insert for use with a belt drive system which seems to becoming popular. The second is the keeping rings for S&S couplers. These keeper rings are changed just before the spray shop and of course before delivery to the customer.
The 23" frame/forks feature original chrome & graphics with Campagnolo dropouts, wrapover seat cluster with allen head fastening and a typical twin plate fork crown drilled with provision for a front brake. 39" wheelbase, 16" chainstays, 11" b/brkt height.
Components include Campy b/brkt axle & c
