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.
Just in the stock room today and found these talk about the good old days. We only have corti (small) so do not bombard the shop with requests for Campagnolo toe clips. I can remember buying my first pair of these and bolting them to my Super record track pedals . Then going for a ride to make a mar
We just had a few sets of the new Reynolds 531 tube. They are a strict limited edition run from Reynolds and come complete with the transfer of course. We have only just had them so no prices yet of a frame but I will post it once we have worked it out. This will be a frame for the enthusiast.
While I was in the spray shop today these two Flying Scot frames came out the oven and I thought you would like a look. The two frames here are almost finished and ready for the customers. The cream one will be built into a complete bike at the shop and the green is being delivered to a customer in
This is a Vincitore special built with Reynolds 725 tubing ( our most popular tube set ) in cream enamel with silver gothic transfers and silver lug lining. Its put together with Campagnolo Centaur equipment complete with Brooks saddle , handle bar tape and when we get them in stock the Brooks toe
Its not only new bikes we build here you can see a renovation we have just completed on a early 1980 frame. Note the lamp boss on the forks and the long rear dropouts. This has been sprayed in our very popular Ruby red flamboyant with a white head tube and seat tube panel white lug lining and transf
Just thought you would like a look at these. Marchisio sprockets are for the customer who wants a different sprocket range offered by Campagnolo or Shimano. Customers have these as a close ratio for the racing lads or a wide ratio for the touring crowd. As we know you always need the gear which is
The spray shop is very busy at the moment as you can see. We have a turn round time of about six weeks its normally about 4 weeks during the summer. These frames are mainly in etch primer ready for there first coat of paint.
Another day at the workshop today doing mainly paper work. While I was there I took this picture of a frame build with the Rohloff dropouts. This particular customer wants to be able to use a disc brake as well as you can see.
Today was a day at our workshop mainly clearing out the back office ready for a coat or two of paint. I am a bit fed up of the 1970s purple walls. The picture shows Tim's work progressing nicely on a frame which is being built with stainless steel S&S couplings. These are for commuting or for trave
Our shop is well known for our stock of Campagnolo spare parts new and old and are always being asked how many spare parts we have . Well to give you a idea this is just some of our ergo spares covering 8 , 9 , and 10 speed and soon maybe a few 11 speed parts no doubt. We must have one of the large
Todays shot is of a range of Merlin titanium frames we stock and I must say they are very nicely made. We can get any of the frames or bikes from there range we also offer a made to measure service from the company although there is a small charge for this. Please do not forget we have a vacancy at
Just thought I would show you this bike that went out today. Its a Rohloff equipped machine in a two tone leaf green pearl and racing green pearl. Complete with Brooks titanium saddle and Brooks handle bar tape. Just an after thought have you noticed how little traffic there is on the roads recently
