Mercian Cycles no more

[ldrcycles]

The legendary Mercian Cycles has entered voluntary liquidation- https://road.cc/content/news/mercian-cy ... ion-308501

Not a lot of detail to go on, although I've seen comments that the shop appeared to be inactive about a month ago.

[WyvernRH]

The legendary Mercian Cycles has entered voluntary liquidation- https://road.cc/content/news/mercian-cy ... ion-308501

Not a lot of detail to go on, although I've seen comments that the shop appeared to be inactive about a month ago.

Yes, a sad outcome. They haven't had an actual 'shop' for a while, they have been concentrating on the frame building/refurbishing business at the workshop.
I have friends who have run a business for many years in the UK building custom steel frames and they went the other way, diversifying to supplying 'custom builds' using imported frames of various materials alongside the custom stuff, also selling specialist/high end parts from their hybrid workshop/retail establishment. Still, they have been scraping along in the current UK economic environment.
Hopefully someone will pick up the bits from Mercian on a smaller scale but really I think it is a sad fact that high quality steel frame building is going to retreat to a very small scale garage business option. I certainly could not make it pay in Oz.

Richard

[GaryF]

The bike world I have loved is constantly changing and I find myself reflecting more and more on the past and not keeping up with the times. I'm getting old.

Mercian Cycles ceasing to exist is another narrowing of my bicycle world. I have never actually seen a Mercian bike but I have admired their bikes in magazines and books, etc. I am sure they have added to the lives of many a cyclist and that will live on.

[elantra]

The bike world I have loved is constantly changing and I find myself reflecting more and more on the past and not keeping up with the times. I'm getting old.

Mercian Cycles ceasing to exist is another narrowing of my bicycle world. I have never actually seen a Mercian bike but I have admired their bikes in magazines and books, etc. I am sure they have added to the lives of many a cyclist and that will live on.

You are not alone in lamenting the passing of (another) quality business.

I don’t know when things started to get rocky in the business of custom bicycle manufacturing but so many iconic brands have either closed down or been bought out by investment companies and sometimes screwed over.

Hopefully the Mercian name will not end up being just purchased for trademark purposes and applied to some generic mass-produced product range from the other side of the world.