[CR]A Mercian Colorado story ...

(Example: Framebuilders:Brian Baylis)

Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 21:54:10 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: "Russ Fitzgerald" <velocio@earthlink.net>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: [CR]A Mercian Colorado story ...

I acquired a 1982 Mercian Colorado earlier this week, and I've had fun learning part of its story. An uncatalogued (to my knowledge) model built for The Spoke in Boulder, this one was built for use by the team that Mercian and the Spoke apparently helped sponsor. It's kinda cool, blending the long-point cutout lugs of the King of Mercia racing model with the spear-point bottom bracket of the Professional. It's a cool metallic blue with the barber pole stripe on the seat tube. It's even my size!

Alas, it has an issue - the top tube has a lovely ding. It's not so deep as to compromise it structurally (I think), but I know myself well enough to know that I can't just blithely ignore it. I'd kind of like to keep the original paint job and its patina, even though the nice folks at Mercian believe they still have the transfers for this model.

The methods I'm pondering are (a) rolling the dents out using a pipe cutter modified to use three rollers instead of two rollers and a blade, or (b) drilling out the plug in the seat tube where it blocks the end of the top tube (internally, natch) and using a grease gun and some oil to hydraulically pop out the dent. Now, then - who has had success with these methods? Warnings? Suggestions? Encouragement?

FWIW, trawling through the archives of phred.org and through Google newsgroups leads me to believe that the Mercian Colorado name went on both touring-oriented machines and speedy race bikes like this one. And yes, Dale - when it's presentable, I'll get you some pix for the CR site!

regards,
Russ Fitzgerald
Greenwood, SC