i own quite a few bikes and they are all gents frames, i love the way diamond frames look, however there are times when i would like to ride without having to change out of my dress and into trousers or shorts , so i decided a while ago to find a good quality mixte frame that would allow me to ride in a skirt or dress ,
 sounds simple right? , well, no, there is a lack of good quality, second hand ,mixte frames on the market and i had all but given up when , i was on my way home and got a call from a friend , he was passing a home renovation building site and saw a purple mixte frame on top of the skip, he had grabbed it and knew i was looking for one and asked if i still wanted one, i asked what it was and the reply came " a mercian" , this stopped me in my tracks , it must be knackered i thought , my friend dropped it off and this is what i got ,

as you can see the seat post needed a bit of heat to remove it, i suspect that this was the only reason it was disregarded , it is perfectly true , i cant find any dents or other damage , the mixte is still available from mercian cycles and costs over £1000 for the frame and fork ! 

over the next few weeks i will be bringing this little beauty back to life , first up is new paint , baby blue is my first thought , but , i am also taken with a light acid lime green flamboyant with candy gold lacquer that i saw a while ago , parts wise i plan on keeping it simple but light and functional .

test build to check its ridability before committing it to new paint , it all looked fine but,,,, you never know what can show up during a ride that wasnt detectable in the workstand  ,and besides that, a good hard ride is always fun :-D ,

 I can report it is rather nice , apart from the seemingly 'endemic lack of toe clearance at the front end of all mecian bikes', i have ridden .

 a friend who went to Mercian and had a king of Mercia built recently had to send his frame back to be re worked due to this very issue  , i do wonder if Mercian customers only ride on straight roads or only use their big toes on the pedals!! ;-), its so annoying when on a long climb which switches back a lot ,usually with extra steep sections right on the bends and your foot collides with the front wheel  , i only wear a size 7 shoe with med MKS clips on 170mm cranks and there is just over an inch of overlap ,even with 25c tyres and the mudguards hugged right into the tyre,, not so good so i may get new forks with extra rake made up for it although it is very quick and responsive as it is and adding more rake would slow the handling quite a bit. something to ponder on . 

the parts are just bits i have laying around, the brakes are the weinmann 610 center pull's , stripped and lubed with a quick polish , they came with the bike , as did the bars and brake levers , the crankset is an old stronglight 55(T) triple variant with the middle and inner steel rings removed then a 32t ,86bcd ,alloy stronglight dural ring fitted to give a fully usable 12 gears , the cranks are rare as i have never seen another , it is very similar to the 55 but the arms have different profile and are heavily hollowed out at the back , i will weight them one day but just holding the assembly with B/B in the hand , its about the same as a 105 HT2 crank assembly , 

gears are very old 6 speed shimano that simply never misses a shift and never need messing with once set up correctly , i will be fitting an old sachs maillard 6 speed freewheel at some point with a yaban 6 speed chain  for most people that just ride, i feel this sort of near bomb proof bear system is far cheaper,lighter and easier to maintain than any hub gear system i have dealt with , not to mention that we could go back to having chains that last rather than the modern ultra thin sprockets and chains we have at the moment , if only shimano would build a groupset based on the late eighties 6 speed Deore xt group for the people like me who dont want a billion gears with ultra short life spans , we want good solid , reliable , rebuildable kit 

wheels are mavic MA40 rear on a BHC airlight with ACI alpina db spokes , the front is an old open4 cd on campagnolo chorus , i will be building new wheels for it with the fantastic value Mach 1 project RJ rims in silver with large flange hubs  .

 tyres are GRL traveller , worthy of note is how impressive these tyres have been , double puncture proof layer , very comfy and nice grip in slimy conditions , and half the price of competition , the quality is in my experience better than schwalbe have been lately !  the ride feel is like the old heavy weight Dunlop roadster tyres , comfy but quick would be an apt summery of the GRL's .

the saddle was borrowed from the stratton to test but i now have a new brooks flyer 's' pre aged i picked up cheaply  that will most likely end up on this machine , i will be fitting drops to it with some of the rarer ,old school , weinmann levers with red push button quick release, the fluting on the stem will be infilled with the same paint as the frame , as will the seatpost top and fluting along with the rear rack  and possibly another ene ciclo front rack , berthoud stainless mudguards will most likely appear at some point 

the bars , i have went for the soma highway 1 bar , it has short 75mm reach and 130mm drop , 

they should be just right with the lugged tange 5290 stem in 100mm , the black section will be painted to match the frame

i will need to find a 1" quill to 1" ahead adapter , i will try the oxford quill riser to allow lots of adjustment to find the best height then cut off the excess ,if it has a 25.4 upper diameter !

how does it ride ? 

like a mercian mixte of course , huge lack of lateral stiffness between the front and rear end but great under power and when climbing , the fork needs more rake as it gets a bit wobbly at speed when freewheeling down hill , this may be the upright set up it has at the moment and may improve when the drop bars are fitted , hold up, i just flipped the north road bars to see if having a more even load distribution would steady it up and it feels much better ,

more soon

;-)