New pick up, Mercian Olympic 1982

[Jamiedyer]

From my limited dealings which has mainly been through email they are always prompt and friendly.
They are expensive for some things but they don't hide the prices like some, the prices are all on the website, the same as ordering a bike search, the price is on the description. They get a lot of requests from what I was told so I suppose time is money and someone has to go searching.
The decals when I got my green KOM repainted, not by Mercian I might add, were very expensive. It was almost £50 for head, downtube and seattube decals, I thought Wow! that's dear considering if you get a Mercian repaint they are £25 but then I noticed it is also £25 to apply the decals. Swings and roundabouts.

Jamie

 

[otherself]

I had a reply from Mercian, they said if I "bought" a search for £20 they MAY find some information on my bike.
OK, if I buy a lottery ticket I MIGHT win the lottery.
I've heard good and bad about them - a couple of good comments on here and one particularly bad one a few years ago about a guy who drove hours to drop off his frame for repainting but got held up in traffic and phoned to say he might arrive slightly after closing time - he arrived 5 minutes late and they'd all gone home.

 

[Ian Raleigh]

I had a reply from Mercian, they said if I "bought" a search for £20 they MAY find some information on my bike.

I don't get Mercians thinking behind this at all, can only be greed at the end of the day.

I've a GIOS Compact HT from 1997, I emailed GIOS in Italy if they have any idea about the bike I have, they replied in a timely manner and thanked me for getting and saving one of their old bicycles, they was more than welcome to give me the information and free of charge at that! I found out who made the frame - when the frame was made - who the frame was originally for - what was originally equipped on the frame - full cost of the whole bike.

I sent them pics of their bike and it has since been registered on their owners website.

 

[pigman]

there's several ways to look at it. They could do an isolated 15 minute search and prinout for free and it would cost the business next to nothing. A hundred of those in a year and it's 25 manhours they havent recovered anything on.
Alternatively they could say those 25 hours cost them £500, put 1% on everything they sell and do the search "for free"

 

[3wheeler7]

Hi, it really doesn't matter a lot to me as I was only trying to identify which model frame it is. Shame that their customer service doesn't stretch to a quick glance in their records - without trying to charge me £20 without any guarantee of finding anything.
It's a good job that people on this (and other) forums share their knowledge, experience and expertise for free instead of just saying "I'm not even going to open that book unless you pay me"!

 

[Dicky71]

Robbing gits!

I went to Mercian about 7 years ago, had a dodgy Campagnolo Ergo lever, they fixed it within 15 minutes,
lever stripped down and fault found it was a spring which was broken in two, lever rebuilt up and working,
spring cost me £4.50p. Charged me £36 labour plus the spring, never felt so ripped off in my life.

If it's any consolation? You have to ask yourself 2 questions;
1) What would a new replacement ergolever had cost?
2) Do you have the tools and knowledge to carry out the repair yourself?

Regardless of who carried out the task, you should bear this fact in mind that you should be grateful that Tulio Campagnolo had the ground principal for the components that they could be repaired. That is the fundamental difference between an Ergopower shifter and an STI shifter. Unfortunatly Campagnolo had to give up this philosophy regarding shifters by about 2011. You cannot repair a Veloce or Centaur 11spd shifter, they're mainly plastic internals.

 

[Ian Raleigh]

If it's any consolation? You have to ask yourself 2 questions;
1) What would a new replacement ergolever had cost?
2) Do you have the tools and knowledge to carry out the repair yourself?

Only a few days after getting the lever fixed I came across a brand new single left side Mirage 9 speed ergo lever on ebay for £15, pretty well pee'd at that as the internals are the same, I have the tools to fix the majority of bikes but never worked on such levers, plus I hadn't a clue what was broken inside the lever, I did however went into much searching and found numerous great articles showing such repairs, just wasn't expecting the mechanic to just tell me the full price....after fixing it.

http://www.nuttycyclist.co.uk/cycling/ergo-rebuild.htm

 

[Dicky71]

Was it a Mirage left hand lever that you had in the beginning? You never know what's broken untill you start taking something apart. You can look on Campagnolos technical documents/spare parts webbpage to find what is compatible. Then you have the problem of sourcing the parts which can be difficult.

 

[Ian Raleigh]

Was it a Mirage left hand lever that you had in the beginning? You never know what's broken untill you start taking something apart.

No my lever is a Carbon Record, was told the internals are exactly the same.

 

[pigman]

Back to bikes, I remember from when I was a lad, mercians always seemed to have a barbers pole seat tube paint scheme. None of the survivors or restorations I see nowadays have this. Is that due to preference or an expensive job to do?