Mercian bikes, any good?

[kazste]

Hello I have a very old approx 20 years Mercian 725 road frame. Is this good enough to justify changing components and spending around £300 doing so mechs brakes and shifters or would I be better off just buying a new bike around £800 mark?? Any thoughts appreciated and also what gear sets are good for performance and value.

Cheers Steve

[anonymous-user]

in a word, yes. mercia are still making bikes and older ones are quite sought after.

725 is reynolds lightweight tubing so providing its in good condition and there is no damage etc then there should be no reason why a new groupset would be a bad thing if so desired.

keep the old stuff though, its most likely campag and there is a strong market for 20 year old campag stuff from the retro crowd.

[kazste]

cheers for that, hopefully should get some cost back at least by selling the old components just been out to check is a 753 frame and fork called a mercian stronglight. and has most components being campag apart from cranks which are also called stronglight so assume mercian made, and gear shifters which just state simplex, and the front mech which is suntour, the rest ie rear mech, brakes brake levers, and head unit are all campag components, any ideas as to where to offer the components, seems a shame to seperate really but planning on getting into racing and dont fancy looking down and trying to feel in the gears as on down tube and not the ones which click in place, guessing not too good in close quarters!!!

edited to add shifters not campag

Edited by kazste on Wednesday 15th July 16:31

[Mr_C]

Very cool

Mercian are just down the road from here in Alvaston, Derby.

Edited by Mr_C on Thursday 16th July 15:31

[kazste]

yeah not too far from me either as ripley area might nip down tomorrow with the bike to see what they say.

[Parrot of Doom]

I still have my Mercian in the loft. I may pull it down and tidy it up, although I don't think I'll risk riding on the 10-year old tyres

It has Reynolds tubing, 105 brakes and crankset, Ultegra gears, downtube shifters (on a band, not braze-on), Mavic rims.

It's a great bike. I'm thinking of mounting it on a wall somewhere.

Edited by Parrot of Doom on Thursday 16th July 18:34

[Parrot of Doom]

Well I pulled it out of the loft. I was surprised at the weight, I remember it being much lighter.

Anyhow, I'll clean it up and get better pics. One thing I did find odd was that as it freewheeled, I smelled a burning smell - like matches. I guess it must be dust and ste in the freewheel or the rear hub. I washed it down in the bath, which of course is where all bikes should be maintained

Check out the fancy camo cork handlebar tape They're hiding what I recall was a pretty expensive set of handlebars (for a student). The frame was sprayed to my instructions - originally it was bottle-green, with gold lettering. The handlebar stem is a 3T design. No such thing as SPDs back then, only Time did the integrated pedals and I couldn't afford those



600 indexed gear levers - handlebar shift had only just come out, and only on Dura-ace - as a student, no way could I afford them.



105 brakes - excellent, really nice and smooth, but the buggers never did brake equally, no matter what Shimano said.