Wheel advise

Please remember when you want your rear wheel rebuilt you take the freewheel off Before you cut the spokes out. It makes the wheel builders job very difficult to say the least. We have no way of holding the hub to remove the freewheel to get the spokes into the spoke holes. This one belongs to one of our frame builders who will remain anonymous hehe.

Velocita

First of all sorry about the lack of a post last night I had to go out almost direct from work so had very little time on my hands. Anyway enough of the excuses lets get on with it. Ok not the best picture in the world but it does the job. As you see its one of our Velocita frames which come with Dedacciai carbon forks, seat stays and chain stays with alloy vertical dropouts ( sorry no track dropouts are available as yet) . The customer has the choice of tubing available from Reynolds and of course can choose his or her own colour . We found with this frame that customers are getting fed up with buying ready made imported frames which in effect are a compromise. Having to buy odd length stems , cranks and seat pins to get sat in the almost correct position. With our frame the customer is measured so that the rider compartment is made to suit the person so giving a more natural position. Anyway its Sunday morning and I am off out for a spin. See you all soon.

London calling

For me it was a short day at the shop today. I had to take a couple of our bikes down to London for a photo shoot for leading mens style magazine. They will be at London for a few days while the photos are taken then I will go and pick them up and hopefully a few very nice photos.

Thank you Chris

This is John our main shop man and the surfer dude. The picture was sent in by Mercians biggest fan Chris from one of his many visits to our shop from Ireland. Chris has a great flickr site and definitely worth a look which I will try and link elsewhere on this site. (by the way Chris I have had one of those Eddy Lawson Replicas).

Frames all in a line

Just before I waffle on about the picture we have a vacancy in our shop details can be found at http://www.bikebiz.com/jobs/1094/retail-sales-person John wants to retire so he can go surfing all day but we will not let him go until we have a replacement to fill his boots. He is a tough act to follow. Now back to the picture at the moment we are very busy (as always) in the spray shop and these frames have just been blasted ready for priming. I wonder how many customers can recognise there frame ? If you can please let me know.

Ergo Man

Meet Jeff The Ergo Man, if there is anything you need to know about ergos Jeff is the man. He is also our tandem man and has held 6 National Competition tandem Records. One of them lasted for 28 years - the mens 50 which he did with Richard. He was also in the first mixed team to break 50 minutes for a 25 mile, a record which he and Elaine are very proud of. He is still breaking records in May of this year he broke the Veteran age related record. Another feather in his cap.

Mercian frame and web site !

Well this frame left us today on its way up to Scotland and I think it looks the business ( lucky Peter ). It has the new vinyl transfers which to my eyes look really nice. On a different tack we ( not me but our web builders) are working on a new web site which will soon be released to the unsuspecting public very soon. It looks the business and has a good few new ideas on it which have not been used before. From now on the pictures should be a lot better I have splashed out on a new pocket camera and with luck should be a lot better in quality if not style/creativity. We have on the cards a new bike ! keep your eyes out for further news .....

Frame checking

First of all thank you Fred for your comment I will try and sort it. The email address is in my profile by the way. Today with help from Carl ( in the picture) was a frame checking day. We check all the custom/ stock frames before paint. I built another Rohloff wheel today (700c) I do like them they build a good wheel.

Campagnolo Record and Super Record

Well at last we know what the new 11spd equipment is all about. As you can see the rear gears look very nice especially the super record rear gear. The Ergo lever looks very nice but dare I say it look,s a bit like S-Ram to me ! Well the total super record group should be about £1600.00 when it lands on our shores. The electronic gears have not shown its face though maybe next year.

A Vincitore Track bike

Just a picture today of a Vincitore track bike ( yet another track bike) being put together by Gav the shop manager. Jeff the ergo man has been looking at the Mercian blog today and I think he is about to put one together himself about the South Pennine Road Club if he does I will link it . I was over at the spray shop today for a while checking the spray booths we sorted out yesterday . You should have seen Rob,s and Phil,s faces when I told them we was going to sort the other booth,s out next week.

Rob,s hard day at work

As you can see Rob has had a really hard day at work today. It must have been all that spray booth cleaning a Rob hehe.

A day in a spray booth

Today was the day to clean one of the spray booth,s Replace bearings in the fans and give the place a general sprucing. To say it was a mucky job would be a understatement .

A visit from Australia

Well I am back from a few days off and back in at the deep end. I have been answering emails for most of the day with a quick run over to the workshop to pick some frames for customers to pick up this weekend. Carl has been fitting out a Colnago at the moment with Campag Chorus equipment and it looks very nice I must say. We have a customer calling in on Thursday from Australia to pick his new bike up Gav has been building his bike today. He intends to do Land,s end to John o Groats while he is here. If he lets me I will get a picture and post it.

I have been at the office all day today getting ready for a few days off so this could be my last post for a day or two. I have posted a shot of a almost finished 60th Anniversary frame being built by Derek. This one is destined for a hard life going to a good friend of mine Paul who does a LOT of miles.

email me direct ?

In the near future if all goes well I will be posting a email address which you will be able to send your own personal question's direct to me . I have been looking into it and may give it a try. What do you think would you like this please let me know in the comments.

Frames in stock

Not a lot happened today besides being very busy in the shop. I have posted a shot of the frames we have in stock just for you to look at . A few custom built bikes went out including a nice very nice Rohloff ( red hub) equipped machine
. I did not manage to get a shot of that before it went out. The customer wanted the drop bars so we had to get a grip shifter from Germany again a very nice piece of engineering. We have a order going through the system for a Merlin frame which will be built with Shimano Dura-ace equipment I will get a picture of that and post it for certain.

Today was quite hard for me the workshop lads went out for a after work ride/drink to celebrate Phil,s birthday and i think we all over did it a tad. Phil lost his sunglasses and i fell of my bike ! the bike,s fine but my elbows and hands have some gravel rash .Thats the reason why I did not blog last night. It,s my bike in the pic a fixed atb style made of 725 tubing it rolls along a treat. Its orange pearl with a matt finish ( i think it look,s great ) thanks to Tim who built the frame and Rob the sprayer.

New member to our team

Hi
Well I had a day at the workshop today sorry to say i drove there in the works van but needs must as there was a lot of renovation work and new frames to pick up for the customers to collect from the shop. Meet Phil , Phil works in the spray shop and a new member to our team. He rides to work most days rain or shine ( on a specialized mountain bike ) . Phil is a big collector , like Corgi cars ( must be in mint condition and in the boxes) model trains and records for example . He only drinks lager and unfortunately because of this is missing out on a real drink Bass for example. hehe. By the way it,s his birthday today 21 again a Phil. Happy Birthday.

Spokes of all types and lengths

Hi Guys
Back to wheels again ! Just a look at our spoke mountain as you can see most are from DT . We build all our own mainly going into our complete bike orders. We also do a lot of wheel repairs for customers who has come a cropper in one way or another. We have a stock off ready built wheels from Easton , Reynolds, Fulcrum amongst others. The Easton,s are by far our most popular with customers. I will be having a ride to the workshop tomorrow I will see if i can take a picture or two there .

Campag spare,s delivery

Besides being very busy indeed today there has only been 3 of us in the shop there,s normally 5 of us we had a Campag spares delivery we get a lot of these from seat post bits to rear gear parts. Not a good picture I know sorry . The equipment spares are fine but wheel spoke kit,s are a nightmare. To get the correct wheel kit you will need to know the year of manufacture this is very important. To find this out check the decals on the side of the rim with the catalogues they change the decals each year .

11 Speed Campagnolo !!

We have just been told Campagnolo will be going 11 speed next year ( do we really need 11 sprockets ? ). Also they are going to add a new Groupset called Super Record a new version not the early 80s group. If we get any pictures ill post em .