JRS's experience sounds more like a complaint about poor assembly practices than about the bike's design, frameset, crankset, wheelset, or other big-ticket items. If you bought it at a real bike shop, shame on them! When I worked at a "mom-and-pop" Peugeot-Nishiki dealership in the early 1970s, one of my recurring assignments was to join the owners and a few other employees every Friday evening for pizza and bike assembly. It took a fast, experienced mechanic more than 30 minutes to make an out-of-the-box Peugeot fully roadworthy, and we saw everything from ungreased Normandy hubs to horrendous chainlines to wine corks in the shipping boxes.
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"Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." --Theodore Roosevelt
Capo: 1959 Modell Campagnolo, S/N 40324; 1960 Sieger (2), S/N 42624, 42597
Carlton: 1962 Franco Suisse, S/N K7911
Peugeot: 1970 UO-8, S/N 0010468
Bianchi: 1982 Campione d'Italia, S/N 1.M9914
Schwinn: 1988 Project KOM-10, S/N F804069