anybody 'lost' a mercian recently?

[alecstilleyedye]

http://www.cyclechat.net/forums/showthread.php?p=1167268#post1167268

i smells a long-tailed rodent…

[Zoidburg]

Naaaah.

Not many thieving chavs have a cottage in the lake district.

[Wowbagger]

That's so similar to mine that I had to check that mine was still in the corridor.

[alecstilleyedye]

who'd buy a mercian, keep it so nicely and then have no idea of its value, or ability to adequately describe it in terms of finishing kit etc?

[Zoidburg]

I have seen better than that be given away or even skipped.

People move on to other pass times, they age, sadly die as well.

Looking at that mercian is seems to be a 27" wheel bike so it's quite possibly lived in the shed for the last 30 years, even a 700 could be that old as well.

You have to realise this about lugged steel these days, a lot of owners have simply grown old and frail or died, then the bikes get passed on or forgotten.

[alecstilleyedye]

oddly enough i have acquired a bike in such a way. the chap was a very keen cyclist in his 20s (back in the late 50s/early 60s) until the family came along and then golf.

the claud butler bike (sans saddle and tyres) i got from him was in similarly great condition. however, he clearly knew all about it, described what he had had done to it, when etc, and this was a bike he hadn't ridden (in his estimation) for over 40 years. he assumed it would be worthless and wasn't interested is selling it as much as ensuring someone got some pleasure from it.



i'm still suspicious, how would anyone come about such a bike (other than via ebay or the like) and find it too small? mercian is a boutique make. i doubt anyone has a mercian in that nick that was just 'a bike' to them.

[Zoidburg]

A chap and his wife came and gave us two Mercians at the recycling project, his and hers matching that they had built 20 odd years back.

The spokes were long gone with rust but these two bikes were handbuilt frames, boutique bikes as you say - some people just get bored and give up cycling. I suggested they ebay them, no interest in computers so that was out, they had no luck selling them in the local paper so they gave them to us rather than the tip.

Another chap gave us a Longstaffs, £2k of handbuilt tourer from the 90s.

Why?

Steel is "old hat" and he had gone for a new soot bike.

[MercuryKev]

This post might provide further info:

http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=35148

[alecstilleyedye]

fair enough. i doubt anyone would be daft to try and shift a stolen bike on the ctc site. the photos at least suggest that he knows something about the bike, if not how to set up a pair of brake blocks…

looks like a genuine sale, sorry for doubting.

[onb]

http://www.cyclechat.net/forums/showthread.php?p=1167268#post1167268

i smells a long-tailed rodent…

Beaver

[giropaul]

The bit I loke is the explanation that it's too small for him, when it's clearly way too large!

[clarion]

http://www.cyclechat.net/forums/showthread.php?p=1167268#post1167268

i smells a long-tailed rodent…

Beaver

It's clearly not a vole.

[oncemore]

Look again at the CTC Ad - seems legit enough to me.

[Sigurd Mudtracker]

I'm amazed at the number of Moulton AMs that people seem to buy, keep in original condition, and sell after 20 years without it having gone more than a couple of miles down the road.  How someone could spend 000's on a bike and have only a casual interest in cycling is beyond me.  The majority of the sales I see on eBay seem genuine (there are a couple of obvious cons from time to time).

Of course, as a Moulton aficionado, the ones that really upset me are the bikes that have been purchased for '000s and then allowed to rust away in a damp shed...

[giropaul]

There are thousands of "good" bikes in sheds and garages.  Around Derby you regularly see old Mercians, for instance, as hack bikes or used by people with no interest in cycling - they move down the desirability chain over the years. (until they become "classics" and the odd one is rescued)

Mercian, by the way, did (and to some extent do) produce some bikes - Campionissimo comes to mind, that were in the "non enthusiast" sort of price range. Certainly, many of these knock about Derby in the way that more known everyday brands do.

I'm told that a London financial institution decided that a cycle ride would be it's annual charity event, and bought 20 or so full carbon Colnagos.

Most of these will now in in sheds, given to kids, used to go for a paper etc.

[onb]

* Shuffles off to newsagent to enquire about paper round *