The Dream Machine

At my age, and having just recently taken up cycling, I am never going to be a competitive or class cyclist. Before retirement, I worked at Rolls-Royce plc for more than 30 years and, though not an engineer, I grew to admire the precision, excellence and beauty of the engineering involved in the manufacture of aero engines. This admiration for engineering excellence was the inspiration behind the desire to have a bicycle which reflected the same values and beauty. And so was born my wish to have a handmade bike frame, equipped with accessories which reflected this thirst for engineered beauty.  
The area where I live used to be the Kingdom of Mercia but is now more prosaically known as Derby. However the Mercia name lives on in the production of hand built bikes by Mercian Cycles and so I determined to have built what would be for me my dream machine; a hand built Mercian Vincitore Special. It was 6 months in the building and this week I took possession of it. I have a raft of pictures showing all sorts of details but below is an image of the finished article..