Poem

This poem was sent to me by Chris our biggest Mercian fan who commissioned it from Willie Carton . He very kindly gave me permission to post it here for you all to read. I,m sure you agree with me its very good indeed. By the way check out Chris flicker site there is a link on this blog.
Thank you Chris



MERCIAN MAN

Born and bred in Derby, pride of the age
Famous in cycling on every stage
Great steel and chrome expertly built
Ride like a dream and finished with care
Just for a fast man to carve through the air
Sought after and dreamt about, with world wide esteem
Only those who ride Mercian know what I mean

Willie Carton Feb 09

Lime Green Flam

Just thought I would show you the new Lime Green Flamboyant . We have only just got this new paint and as you can see ( hopefully) has a very bright finish. We are sure this will become a very popular choice. This renovation is on a early Mercian track frame with Nervex lugs.

Head Badges

We where looking through a cabinet or two the other day and come across a few head badges I thought you would like to have a look at. As you can see a few examples are very early indeed.

Mercian Beer ( not made by us )

I was handed this by one of our frame builders the other day and was told to try it. The name goes a long way of course but I must say it was a nice drink. Well worth keeping a eye out for in your local.

Renovation time

Its this time of year when you need to get your frame re-sprayed ready for the coming summer ( if we get one ) . Here you see a few thats been undercoated ready for the spray booth. Once finished they will look like new.

Collections and Deliverys

Because of the severe weather conditions ( according to Parcel Force )
our collection and deliverys are taking a little longer. There seems
to be ice on the road. I would like to apologise for any inconvenience
caused.
www.mercianblog.com

Phone line

Hi all just a quick update . We are having a few problems with the phone
line. It may have somthing to do with the snow. The line should be
fixed this evening. So please email service@merciancycles.com if you
can not get through.
Thank you

www.mercianblog.com

Rohloff tandem

David was good enough to send me these pictures amongst others of his tandem. They do own dare I say it more than one of our tandems and a few solo's going by the garage pictures he sent me. The rear hub is a Rohloff which has now clocked up quite a few miles without any problem and as you can see has a cable Avid disc brake. I like the audible warning devise on the rear bars.

Snow and lots of it

Snow today and it stopped me riding into work. We have not had snow like this for some time and going by the weather people its here for some time to come.

Campagnolo

Well this book is well worth a look, I got mine through the post the other day from
Waterstones and I’m very impressed. It has the Campagnolo history, from the very early years right up to the brand new 11 speed equipment.
This reminded me of my trips to the Campagnolo factory. I’ve been lucky enough to have been 4 or 5 times over the years, when Mercian was in charge of the UK warranty.
It’s a huge place where the shop floor workers ride bikes to get around from one side to the other (20” wheels by the way), one of the office workers had a Campag equipped mountain bike. It must have changed now but I can remember in one corner of the factory was the early spares part bay. It was a caged off area where only the very early spare parts where kept and I must admit it was absolutely out of this world. Bearing in mind it was stuffed to the rafters with every part you could imagine, only one man was allowed in this area and he knew where everything was and every code number. We got John a few bits to get his bike on the road from there. In the offices upstairs was a corridor which was strictly off limits I learnt in later trips this was where the design team was with prototype equipment and drawings. Dino was in charge of us while we where - there ferrying us around the old town of Vicenza in his Fiat 500 ( i think ) obviously knowing where all the best cafes and pizza cafe’s were.