Mercian cycles call it a day .

[bikeworkshop]

We used to sell all-city - and like some other brands owned by the same parent company, QBP the prices shot up during the pandemic.

I think qbp was looking to increase margins (in a trade where breaking even is good work) so increased prices to see which of the brands they'd acquired could carry it forward.

And all-city wasnt one of them.

I'm always surprised at how well surlys sell at current prices.

I think you could get a nice mercian for around a grand 10 years ago, when a surly cost under 600. That makes the mercian look like great value, although in a smaller market.

Perhaps mercian had the customers but hadn't been able to keep up with fast rising input costs. Its also pretty hard to find dedicated staff in many industries - I know this has caused some people to give up.

 

[chickendrumsticks]

We used to sell all-city - and like some other brands owned by the same parent company, QBP the prices shot up during the pandemic.

I think qbp was looking to increase margins (in a trade where breaking even is good work) so increased prices to see which of the brands they'd acquired could carry it forward.

And all-city wasnt one of them.

I'm always surprised at how well surlys sell at current prices.

I think you could get a nice mercian for around a grand 10 years ago, when a surly cost under 600. That makes the mercian look like great value, although in a smaller market.

Perhaps mercian had the customers but hadn't been able to keep up with fast rising input costs. Its also pretty hard to find dedicated staff in many industries - I know this has caused some people to give up.

I think there haven't been enough apprenticeships of late. I don't know much about the ins and outs of taking them on but you can bet there'll be loads of bureaucracy involved, not to mention significant up front costs. BITD it was easy.

 

[bikeworkshop]

Minimum wage means you need your staff to be skilled enough when you take them on.
My experience tells me it takes a year to get from keen amateur to earning your keep.
So if you needed some new staff but didn't have money to invest, then the game's up.

Brexit had a massive effect on quantity of job applicants too.

Hard hard hard.

What a shame. We've had a lot of mercians - oozing charm.

 

[Tsundere]

Halfords hostile takeover of the ride to work scheme has also hurt small shops and custom frame builders. There are more bikes being sold now than at any time before, and with the war on cars that will only increase, but the giants are hoovering up that business and leaving no scraps for the little guy.

Currently I'm looking to get a 'modern' bike through this scheme because it's quite a good deal, you get a discount, you get to pay in interest free installments etc. I want a quality bike, something like a Moulton, but because my employer has signed up to the Halfords scheme the purchase has to go through Halfords, even though I can buy a bike from elsewhere, there's a penalty for doing that so Halfords still get their cut, and that limits the options.

With any luck we'll end up at war with Russia and China, then the rare earth minerals needed for ebike batteries, and cheap carbon frame supply lines will dry up.

Armageddon might well be the small independent steel bike frame builders last hope.

 

[bikeworkshop]

Halfords hostile takeover of the ride to work scheme has also hurt small shops and custom frame builders. There are more bikes being sold now than at any time before, and with the war on cars that will only increase, but the giants are hoovering up that business and leaving no scraps for the little guy.

Currently I'm looking to get a 'modern' bike through this scheme because it's quite a good deal, you get a discount, you get to pay in interest free installments etc. I want a quality bike, something like a Moulton, but because my employer has signed up to the Halfords scheme the purchase has to go through Halfords, even though I can buy a bike from elsewhere, there's a penalty for doing that so Halfords still get their cut, and that limits the options.

With any luck we'll end up at war with Russia and China, then the rare earth minerals needed for ebike batteries, and cheap carbon frame supply lines will dry up.

Armageddon might well be the small independent steel bike frame builders last hope.

The post-apocalyptic cockroaches all ride apollos (and those mig welded raleighs like the mustang)

Steel yes, retro yes, but crap yes.


ps complain to your hr about the restrictive c2w - they might change it to a better one)

 

[Russell]

Paul at Ellis Briggs is missing the point. There are plenty of modern young frame builders working with steel and fitting modern kit. If Mercian or others choose not to, they will die out.

Go to Bespoked or look at the NAHBS pics and you’ll see lots of examples of stunning, steel handmade bikes built with modern groupsets.

 

[sjcprojects]

Paul at Ellis Briggs is missing the point. There are plenty of modern young frame builders working with steel and fitting modern kit. If Mercian or others choose not to, they will die out.

Go to Bespoked or look at the NAHMBS site and you’ll see lots of examples of stunning, steel handmade bikes built with modern groupsets.

True, but Mercian did offer frames like the High Peak which was specifically for the gravel market with pretty much everything a modern mass-produced frame would have. I don't think Mercian could be accused of not keeping up with trends – it's more the wider issues which others have already spoken about here.

 

[bikeworkshop]

The larger trad framebuilders were often encouraged to stick with tradition by their own core customers, but there's so much fantastic quality traditional stuff (second hand) out there cheap, so the market for £1000 trad frames is limited.

Additionally innovation seems to disfavour long- established brands.

It was almost impossible to sell British branded mtbs at the turn of the millennium.
The same bike branded trek or marin would fly by comparison.

It puts a long established, quality UK manufacturer at multiple disadvantages☹

 

[Ellis-Briggs]

Paul at Ellis Briggs is missing the point. There are plenty of modern young frame builders working with steel and fitting modern kit. If Mercian or others choose not to, they will die out.

Go to Bespoked or look at the NAHBS pics and you’ll see lots of examples of stunning, steel handmade bikes built with modern groupsets.

I wasn't saying that. I was saying that it increase the complication of the build and therefor time. The lugs and dropouts and other parts available we're mostly designed in the 1980s and 90s and need adaption to work with modern bike designs. Yes you can forgo lugs and fillet braze but that is a longer process as well. Which is why many builders have switched to tig. If you are able to charge more then you can absorb these extra costs more easily.

Take for example thru axle dropouts, there is no way to cheat, they have to be aligned spot on. You can't really tweak them to get them parallel after the fact, you cant file them a little so the wheel sits straight, they don't have adjusters.

All these little challenges add up. Yes any competent framebuilder can do them but there is no denying it takes longer to do. Also I think Mercian were saddled with legacy pricing.

When I started, 24 years ago, we sold a basic 531 frameset for £350 painted in a single colour including a headset. My mentor Andrew spent a week building one. We lost money on them. Might sound crazy to anyone in business but we kept our framebuilder in a job and we ekpt the prestige of being a framebuilder. But there is no denying that the shop subsidised the framebuilding side and had done for years. It is why we could spend more time building a frame to a higher standard. I would say Woodrup were probably in the same situation.

Not long after that, steel frames became fashionable again. So prices increased to a point where it was possible to earn a living from them and the only change in the bikes were things like aheadset.

Fast forward to 2024 and steel frames are quite widely available and popular. But most are imported and the handmade side has become more niche and high end. Some builders are trying to reduce costs by switching to tig and making batches of frames. And that can work for some I think. But they are competing more directly with imported frames which are well made, so its harder to differentiate.

At the end of the day, the joining method doesn't really matter that much . On this forum I'm sure everyone knows the difference between lugs, fillet brazing and tig welding, but for a lot of riders who are newer to cycling I imagine they don't. In fact I'm sure plenty won't even know that you can get a custom bike made, despite the popularity of shows like bespoked.

I have another 20 years left in me. I would like to pass those skills on but there needs to be demand for the product in the long term. Its difficult for companies like Mercian who had lots of heritage, but you need to stay relevant without losing your essence. A very difficult thing to do.

 

[Gtpulse]

Nothing mercian has sold in the last several months for over 750, apart from this:
View attachment 852205
Course we don't know what bongos took as an offer, but that's a pretty retro piece.

I’m sure that went for £1k or less. I can’t remember if it was a private offer or I just saw it change in my watched items but I last saw it up for £1k.