Liam Egan remembers his long history with Mercian

Liam Egan has been riding bikes for 6 decades or so, catching the bug as a young lad in Dublin.  Liam recently rode the Paris2Nice as one of the tour guides, a gentle spin for such an experienced tourer!  Liam recounts below his various Mercian bikes, with pictures of the recent tour, and one from his younger days with his fellow Emerald RCC clubmates in the 1960’s.  He’s no longer riding a Mercian but we’ll try and tempt him!

“Sometime around my 14th birthday I graduated from a Raleigh Robin Hood bike to my very first Mercian. My secondhand King of Mercia frame had been languishing in the Rutland bike shop in Dublin for some time so I picked it up for relatively little before getting it resprayed in the local Raleigh paint shop. In return for helping out in the Rutland on Saturdays, I was allowed to strip old equipment of bikes dumped in the basement and, before too long, I was riding my “new” bike to school. Anyone with a decent bike was expected to join the Emerald Road Cycling Club so I duly did and was soon out on Winter spins on the backroads around Dublin and beyond. By early Spring, the leisurely spins had transformed into full-on training sessions and I was soon entered into my first Junior race. Coming second-last should have been an indicator that I was not destined for great success but I stuck at it for a few years before finally abandoning racing and focusing on touring with my older brother. A Holyhead-Manchester-London-Holyhead trip was one of many memorable highlights.

My Mercian served me well for a few more years before it was eventually and inevitably stolen shortly after I started in College. Once again, I spotted a King of Mercia in the Rutland, bought and equipped it after having the frame resprayed in the Mercian factory. This black & yellow beauty only lasted a couple of years before it too was stolen. There was at least one more British Racing Green King of Mercia in the mid-70s but, when that went the way of its predecessors, I unfortunately decided I could no longer afford to supply the bike thieves of Dublin with such high quality and attractive bikes. I downgraded to a series of utterly forgettable bikes mainly used for commuting to work and the odd weekend spin.

Fast forward to the mid-90s and a chance visit to the Rutland not long before it closed. Hanging from the ceiling, and largely obscured by some new frames, was a beautiful Mercian Professional, fully equipped with Campagnolo Super Record equipment – the bike of my youthful dreams. I pretended not to be too interested but was impressed to hear that it had been owned and raced by a well-known cyclist who had emigrated to the States. His brother was selling it and fortunately didn’t appreciate the true value of the bike so it was just about affordable despite my having a young family and a substantial mortgage. A few weeks later, having had the wheels rebuilt with clincher rims, I had my first spin on my new purchase and fell head over heels in love. With its race geometry and stiff frame, it was of course quite unsuited to commuting in traffic but that didn’t deter me in the slightest. On weekend and evening spins I rediscovered my love of cycling and of Mercians.

All good things come to an end and my love affair with that bike ended very abruptly in 2008 on a wet January evening while heading home from work. When a van turned to cross in front of me at a junction, the driver either didn’t see me or miscalculated our relative speeds. The resultant collision saw me somersault over the van while my lovely Mercian embedded itself in the side panel. After a somewhat painful recovery, I checked with Mercian to see if my badly damaged frame could be repaired and resprayed but the quoted cost was more than that of a new frame and well beyond my budget at the time.

While that marked the end of my experience riding Mercians, fortunately I never quite stopped cycling. Having retired from work a decade ago, I joined a local cycling club and routinely do a couple of 100km leisure spins most weeks. I also do some cycle-guiding mainly on multi-day charity cycles in Europe where I get the chance to pass on my enthusiasm for cycling to younger generations. Every so often I catch a glimpse of a classic steel framed bike bearing the distinctive Mercian logo and cannot resist exchanging bike histories with the fortunate owner. Long may Mercian continue to thrive and to make superb classic bikes.”