Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 3,520
Likes: 12
From: Colorado Springs, CO
Bikes: 1959 Bottecchia Milano-Sanremo (frame), 1966 Bottecchia Professional (frame), 1971 Bottecchia Professional (frame), 1973 Bottecchia Gran Turismo, 1974 Bottecchia Special, 1977 Bottecchia Special (frame), 1974 Peugeot UO-8
Well, personally I like to keep the UO8 with the vintage French theme so I would choose a vintage French crank like a Stronglight, TA, or Nervar. I bought my Nervar for about $38 IIRC. I put the Nervar on another bike and used the Stronglight I took off for the UO8 so that plus the $18 Stronglight spindle would be $56. Not too bad. Of course going this route does present the problem that the chainrings will likely be non-standard (Ok, not modern standard before all you Francophiles out there write in to tell me the French created the standards in 1892 or something) so you wouldn't be able to just pop into the nearest LBS for a replacement but they come up on eBay frequently enough. A little more work and effort but waaay cooler than going the Japanese route IMHO. Here's how it came out:
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1959 Bottecchia Milano-Sanremo(frame), 1966 Bottecchia Professional (frame), 1971 Bottecchia Professional (frame),
1973 Bottecchia Gran Turismo, 1974 Bottecchia Special, 1977 Bottecchia Special (frame),
1974 Peugeot UO-8, 1988 Panasonic PT-3500, 2002 Bianchi Veloce, 2004 Bianchi Pista