My New Vintage Bike

[jyl]

Craigslist find. I got to the seller a couple hours after he posted, did the deal, and he took down the ad so I didn't have to deal with higher offers.

Peugeot PX-10, guessing 1970-1973.

Needs to be stripped, overhauled, and detailed, and has a bit of paint scrape at the seat cluster, but it is complete, straight, in good condition.

[nikita76]

Beautiful bike! Judging from the lug work(painting on the headtube and not on the seat tube), Stonglight cranks, Simplex shifters and derailleur, Reynolds tubing, Mafac brakes, I believe it to be a 1967, coincidentally, the last year someone won the Tour de France on a Peugeot!

Nice grab!
Congrats!

NRD

[jyl]

Wow, earlier than I thought.

Plastic simplex prestige RD - consistent with 60's?

[aigel]

I had a POS broken Panasonic Road Bike I put on CL for $60 5 years back in the Bay Area. The phone exploded with calls and it was sold within an hour. WTF?

I won't make that mistake again. Next time $200!

G

[dan88911]

That seat is going to work wonders on your a**.

[URY914]

I like the big wheel flanges.

[jyl]

Unicantor saddle, baby. What the hard men ride. Until they can never get hard again.

The hubs are groovy, but will be a PITA to clean up. Because I don't know how to wire-tie spokes, I won't disassemble this wheel. I'll true it and then polish the rims, spokes, and hubs "in situ", which means lots of reaching between spokes. And I'll have to polish around the stickers, without harming them.

[Mrmerlin]

I have one of those mine is a 1976 It has been repainted no stickers on it.

Your new PX 10 looks to have a Brooks saddle thats what was on mine
I didnt really like the glue on tires but they work

[nikita76]

Yes...they used the prestige rear deraileur as early as 1966. The World Championship colors were probably added because Jan Janssen who won the tour was the World Champion in 1964.

NRD

[herr_oberst]

John, nice find! Agree with the others on the Simplex - my first good bike (bought used in '73) (English "Falcon") had that very same drivetrain, so very well could have been fitted in the late '60's.

My first and last experience with sew-ups, too.

[azasadny]

Great find! That will be beautiful when you're done with it!!

[Joeaksa]

I raced one of those bikes from 1966 until 1970.

What are you going to do with it?

[jyl]

I could cut off the derailleur hanger, discard the derailleurs and shifters, and make it into a hipster fixie with "Keep Portland Weird" stickers.

Or, alternatively, I could make it my winter project. Detail clean the frame, touch up the paint scrape, polish the chrome socks. Overhaul all the bearings. True the wheels, polish the rims and hubs. New tubulars, cables, housing, pads. Replace all the old steel clamp hardware. Clean and polish the aluminum components. Restore the Delrin stuff with Mothers Black. Wrap cotton tape in a tricolor pattern, it being a French bike and all.

And then either ride it on sunny days or, if it is too small - can't tell yet - reluctantly sell it.

Guessing I'll plump for #2. I hope it fits, haven't actually thrown a leg over it. Tires don't hold air.

[Joeaksa]

Interested in selling it right now?

[craigster59]

So, c'mon, you can tell us. Did you do a little "happy dance" when you got home because you knew you scored?

[Joeaksa]

Speaking of scored... there are almost 10 of them for sale right now on Ebay. Never thought that there would be that many around... Guess they built more than we thought!

[jyl]

I'm not looking to sell it now, Joe. Maybe if it doesn't ride as I imagine, after it's all done up. But I'm looking forward to the restore.

PX-10s are on eBay fairly often. Some are not actually PX's but some are. Prices vary wildly, typical for eBay.

I was happy to stumble across the bike. I wasn't planning on another bike project just yet, but since this one has all the bits, it won't be too hard. The other projects are starting as just frames. It is expensive to build a bike from high-end vintage bits bought one at a time on eBay. Time-consuming too.

[jim72911t]

Nice find, and it appears to be just my size. I will ask that you put a shorter stem on it (say, 110mm) before you ship it my way, as my old back just cant handle such a low stretched out riding position anymore.

Also, is it just me, or does the seat tube angle seem way slacker that the head tube angle? Not too familiar with late '60's/early '70's road bike geometry.

Last: restore to as stock as you can, and enjoy it. Nothing like the ride of a classic steel frame.

[jyl]

I've always thought the steep head tube indicated an earlier (pre-1970) PX-10. Not 100% sure about that, not even 75% sure.

The thing is, the headtube badge and downtube/seattube decals look to me like the mid-1970s style, not the 1960s/early-1970s style.

I've been searching images of PX-10s and so far have not seen one with the fancy Nervex lugs combined w/ this decal style. NRD, others - thoughts?

So I am a bit puzzled and am wondering if this bike might have been repainted, possibly quite a long time ago. I am going to inspect it more closely tonight.

It doesn't make any difference but that's part of the fun of old bikes - playing detective.

[Joeaksa]

The difference styles and modifications really make it difficult to date a PX-10.

Serial numbers are no help, all the can do is tell you which decade (5 numbers usually mean the 1950's, 6 the 1960's and so on) then you have the 4-5 years where they riveted the serial number tag on the BB and in many cases its been removed or changed.

Then like you mentioned, many bikes were repainted and updated with different decals. The lugs do help in some cases but Peugeot did put different styles on the same years, so its a crap shoot at times.