I have been staring at my Peugeot PK wondering why it appears the ATAX stem (current plus one prior) appear to point down instead of appearing level. I am super sure there has not been a crash and to the point I have seen this on other French bikes. My Cinelli 1A on the other hand seems to come out level with the ground. I know this is a combination of head tube angle and the stem angle. Is this actually a thing about French bikes?

Easier to pull a pick from the web of an example below, but can post the PK photo later.

Is it the OEM stem? It could have been designed for bikes with a slacker head tube angle.

It looks like you have a track bike stem, not a road bike stem.

...I think the stems stayed at more or less the same angle. IN the French bicycles I own/have owned from the 1970's, the head tube angles varied wildly over the years. A lot of them got pretty steep when that was the thing. My reference points are Peugeot PX-10's and Moto Grand Record's. I've had examples of each that were both slack and steep from early to mid 70's... I've never noticed a difference in stem angles.

I noticed that the original Japanese stem on this bike pointed a bit downward, even on a bike with a slack 72-degree HT angle.

Now, if the bike had about a 70-degree HT angle, the stem extension would be about level.

Thanks [MENTION=185430]dddd[/MENTION] that does appear to have a similar look to the French bikes and likely due to the head tube angle.

I was searching for the geometry page on the vintage catalogs but was not successful in digging up any on Peugeot angles.

Part of it is the styling of the stem. Those stems that taper from skinny at the quill to fat at the bar clamp tend to be designed to be approximately horizontal on the top surface rather than center-to-center horizontal. Stems that taper in the other direction seem to follow no such rule.

[MENTION=209177]3alarmer[/MENTION] what stem is on the Grand Record?

According to this write up, the Competition PY10 has quite a steep head angle at 75 degrees, definitely explaining the stem / bar that points down.
1974 Peugeot PY10