Originally Posted by froze
ALEHINE and WALTER; I've too been googling the Mercian and have pretty much made the decision to buy this next year.
Question: What is your opinion of their workmanship and ride quality of these bikes? Also what tube set did you choose and why?
Thanks!
Hi. I've been on other people's Mercians and liked the ride, but I have only had this frame for about 2 weeks now - and the only components I have for it yet are crank, stem, and bars, so I don't have a ride report on it. I have to work a lot of OT to save for the Speedhub now while still getting out Xmas presents to the fam.
Here's what I have to say about it though: Mercian took about 5 months to build it. They executed my requests exactly, so that's a good sign and I have a feeling it will be a really nice ride.
The workmanship is quite nice. It's one of those frames that gets prettier the closer you get to it, and things are well-faced and well-aligned to good tolerances by my measure. You can't see in the 2 pics I put up, but they did lug and ring lining in white and gold, which is really nice looking. It feels solid, and I'm sure it will hold up to some good loads.
Here are some more pics if you want, including some close-ups, but to save people's eyes and not warp the thread with hugeness, I'm just going to put up the links:
http://www.clan4m.com/oistrakh/mercian000.jpg
http://www.clan4m.com/oistrakh/mercian001.jpg
http://www.clan4m.com/oistrakh/mercian003.jpg
http://www.clan4m.com/oistrakh/mercian004.jpg
http://www.clan4m.com/oistrakh/mercian005.jpg
http://www.clan4m.com/oistrakh/mercian006.jpg
http://www.clan4m.com/oistrakh/mercian009.jpg
http://www.clan4m.com/oistrakh/mercian010.jpg
http://www.clan4m.com/oistrakh/mercian011.jpg
As for materials, I chose Reynolds 531-ST, which was specially made for touring some many moons ago. They offer just about any Reynolds tube you could want though, including more modern alloys that are both stronger and lighter, but I like the ST ride of my dad's older tourer, so that's what I went with.
Originally Posted by froze
But like you guys I could not justify spending over $3,000 for a bike that would be used for touring, yet I can appreciate the custom lug work etc, so I was torn between just getting a Trek 520 touring bike for it's cheap lets trash it logical side me, or the Rivendell Atlantis for the artsy fartsy side of me. The artsy fartsy side of me won out AFTER I discovered the Mercian could be had for less then the Atlantis and still be custom made and be artsy fartsy.
Heh, actually, this touring bike is going to top $3k, considering the frame & Rohloff alone come out at $2400, leaving me whatever else for most of the other components and racks, which are going to include some Phil Wood stuff, some Mavic A719s, a new Brooks, and the strongest Tubus racks (I'm leaving my old racks on my Bianchi San Remo to use for grocery shopping and tooling around town with).
Regardless, you don't need - by any stretch of the imagination - to do what I did here to get a great tourer, and you can get a Mercian custom frame with all the brazeon giblets for derailleur touring for around $1k, I think. The stock of this frame (without any of the brazeons and options, mind you) is only £375 (they have an exchange rate thingee on their site, but I'm going to guestimate that at under $750).
I was just going for my "dream bike" here - a very unique thing that is admittedly probably too much chocolate fudge on the sundae, but it's a gift to myself to celebrate all the money I've saved from selling my car almost 3 years ago.