Am I right in thinking the Mercury is in the 13kg region, and has 700c wheels? Do you know the weight of yours in the current set up? I appreciate there are a lot of variables to make a bicycle easier to ride but my Nomad is just under 20kg with 26" and I fancy something different for daily riding.
Gary
If I could but in - I have the same size Mercury, with heavier rims, dynamo and lights, different titanium rack, 35/32 Supreme tyres which I think are a little heavier, otherwise similar spec. I did go on a bit of a weight saving binge a couple of years ago, there's a thread about it somewhere, I got it down to 13.2, but it's crept back up to 13.6.
I've never had a Nomad, but my first Thorn was the original Raven Tour, it's hard to imagine two touring bikes as different to each other as the Raven and Mercury. The Raven did the job, but the Mercury is fun. It is still a touring bike though, there is IMO still a fair gap between it and an Audax bike, though I'm happy to use mine for Audax.
I have always liked it, but over time it's grown on me, to the extent that when I wrote it off a couple of months ago I didn't consider replacing it with anything else but the same. If Steve had been a bit quicker putting his up for sale I'd have bought it in a flash.
Hope that helps