There are plenty of people who want something different to a big name carbon race bike - see Fairlight, Mason etc. And there might well be a sizeable number of people willing to pay the premium to have something like that made custom for them in the UK. But it's a long way from there to buying a Mercian.
This doesn't read well. 🙁
https://road.cc/content/news/mercian-cycles-customers-raised-alarm-over-poor-service-308643
I ordered their most expensive custom frameset, a Pro Lugless44, and was very specific in what I wanted it to do. It finally arrived after a two-year wait
From the article. A two year wait? They were either a lot busier with orders that I had guessed or it is not surprising very few people were buying from them.
That road.cc thread isn't good to read. When I said earlier up the thread that there can be other reasons for all this unrelated to product demand, that's what I meant but didn't want to start on the negative stuff. I was a potential Mercian buyer a few years ago but didn't get a good feeling about the whole process from the early spec discussion onwards. I went elsewhere. A chap I know went ahead with an order about a year later and the frame went back in the end due to the build quality issues. I wasn't sure if our experiences were representative but they may have been.
It's a shame when a brand with such heritage goes that way, there's not many old school frame shops in the UK and I wanted to buy from one. In the end I got a lugged Reynolds frame from Lee Cooper, nothing flashy, but all bar the dropouts are from local industry and it rides beautifully.
Hopefully Mercian will find a buyer and continue.
Yay!
Mercian has been saved:
https://road.cc/content/news/mercian-cycles-saved-four-local-businessmen-309121
