Classic & Vintage - Puegot or Bridgestone?

Aftert the recent tempo find and starting to redo the touring bike,and while the 73 sport is still in rehab, I need to build out a 'town' bike. What that means is some short fast riding, medium slower riding (5-10 miles), sometimes with up to 150 pounds in a trailer but more often no more than 35.

So I've got a pair of atb frames I'm considering using as a base. a Bridgestone City Limit and a Peugeot US Express. The bridgestone is a bit tighter, has a slight downslope in the top tube, and is a tiny bit shorter seat to bb and seat to head tube. Wheelbase is also shorter, which would bother me for panniers, but is fine since I tend to need a trailer for daily city life.

The Peugeot is definitely a more frame, and lighter. In fact, I'm shocked that it's such an unappreciated bike. This is the Canadian made teal and white one, and the lugged steel lightweight frame is just comfortable. Probably a little light for serious offroading, but going along the railroad tracks is my most onerous chore in town.

Bridgestone is 4130, Puegot is L 1011. Unfortunately, I know nothing about the frame materials in comparison to each other.

components for either will end up being the same, single ring up front, 7 speed rear. Exage 300 Lx and index shifting.

Part of me thinks the Peugeot wants to be a straight chainline single speed or fixie with the evil claw rd mount and the nicely adjustable dropouts.

Vote!

And someone please explain the steel (and anything else you know about the frames)


GAH. can't fix typos in the thread title!

I have a Bridgestone CB-1 City Limit as my grocery hauler bike (rear rack w/ panniers, front basket) and like it a great deal. It feels very stable with lots of weight. The key dimension for panniers is the length of the chainstays, not necessarily the wheelbase (which has to do with fork rake, among other factors). I also had a Peugeot Canyon Express frameset awhile back, and it was quite a nice lugged steel MTB. It did have an annoying chainstay-mounted U-brake and vertical dropouts, but I set it up as a single speed with a singulator and traded it to someone who was looking for a single speed winter ATB. Fwiw.

Neal

My younger son rode a juvenile 24"-wheeled U.S. Express for a few years, until it was stolen. The thief actually left a shiny late-model Magna in its place ... weird! I proudly noted that my son saw the Magna for the POS it was and really missed his made-in-Taiwan Peugeot.

Yeah- I have a Bianchi with the stay mounted brake. not a bad frame otherwise (a bit heavy), but given that I've got no shortage of frames, that one is destined for the bike church. The US Express is a totally different breed from the lower end Peugeot bikes I remember from the late 80s. Oh, the components are far from high end, but the frame feels like yum. One problem with putting anything into it is that I've got quite enough bikes, so unless I use it to replace my mesa runner mtb fixie, it's going to get sold. and no one will pay for the time I'm going to have into this one, even SS converted I'll be lucky to get $50. OTOH, I'll probably find someone to giveit to who will appreciate it.

The stays on my CB1 are a bit short, or maybe it's my size 12 workboots- this sn't the first time I've seen this problem crop up on an urban riding bike for me. Otherwise it's pretty nicely done. Can't figure out the year, but I may try out my atb wraparound bars on it instead of the riser bars as a psuedo bb-1. I don't notice biospaceone way or the other,so I'll probably keep the larger ring, move it into the middle, and take another SIS/friction switchable lever to use on it.