My son's girlfriend has an old Peugeot Mixte with the left fork pretty bent out of shape. She's not a power rider, just rides around town in the summers. Is it safe to bend that back, or should I buy a donor bike and throw a new fork on it? She really likes the bike, so she'd rather not replace the whole bike. I'd say the left hole for the wheel is a good inch off alignment. The bike wants to go left.

I offered to bend it back.

Have a professional shop do it. If the blade is only slightly out of alignment it can be fixed. Most any steel fork can be repaired provided it is not crumpled or sheered into a sharp protrusion.

I would search the internet for a frame repair shop in your area. Otherwise you could probably ship it to Yellow Jersey and have them fix it. You could bend it yourself but a shop will have it aligned correctly.

Good luck.

It's a $100 bike. It doesn't warrant a shop repair.

It's either I bend it, or I buy a throw-away bike and scavenge the fork. I'm just trying to save her the $100 to buy a donor.

I'm going through a similar issue with a Miyata that got doored. I've been bombing out on finding the right size at the LBSs and think I'll probably order one from Alfred E. Bike. The Dimension fork is hi-ten ($25) and the Tange is chromoly for under $40. I think I'll go with the Tange. If you went this route you'd also need an ISO headset, which is probably more good than bad.

I've got a spare fork if you don't mind going to a unicrown (i.e, it won't look right on that Peugeot). Best to find one with a fork crown, but there's one sitting here unused if you or somebody else wants or doesn't mind a unicrown.

If you buy a new steel one, you may need to have the crown race milled---there's probably going to be a LBS charge for that...

The Tange fork I'm looking at has a 26.4 crown race. I'd need a new HS since the old one is JIS, but that's OK. Not sure I understand the milling issue.

Oh man! I'm getting a headache!

I'm an English bike guy, and don't really want to learn how to upgrade a French bike, although I've heard it's a fun and rewarding pasttime.

I suppose, since no one seems to chime in about bending the fork, that that is not an option. I'll look out for a cheap bike on Craigslist.

I bent a misaligned (super vitus) fork back into alignment once, however, it only stayed there until I stood up on the pedals to climb some easy to moderate hills, then it went back out of alignment....

Beware of fitting stems to forks that will result in excessive threading below the headset. The following is what happened when I fit a 250mm replacement fork (Hawley USA distributed, p/n FORK1133) with 100mm of threading on a 61cm frame requiring 222mm of steerer:









If it wasn't for the useless washer slot, it might have held up - but I don't like pushing my luck with the threads either.

Always try to get the fork that will afford you the least number of unnecessary threads below your headset locknut, even if it means chopping off a heck of a lot of steertube.

-Kurt

It can probably be straightened. Peugeot forks show up on Ebay all the time. Any idea how old the bike is?

Here's a Peugeot fork, but it has a very long steerer. It can be shortened, but I wouldn't want to have to try to find a shop that has a die to cut threads on a French steerer.

https://cgi.ebay.com/PEUGEOT-UO8-FORK...ayphotohosting

If you go with a non-French fork, you'll need a headset, a stem and possibly bars if you have drops because French ones have wierd threads and sizes.

I don't know why I love French bikes, but I do.

Let's go back to the beginning. Sciencemonster, are you confident you know where the mixte fork is bent; like, can you see a deformation in one or both blades? Fork blades are bent in a jig, to begin with, but that's with the top of the blade open, not inaccessible as they are now with the fork crown installed.

Does anyone know how a frame shop would go about this? Seen it done, or done it? If the deformation is in the lower part of the fork, you could make a "brake" out of three laminations of wood, the center one with a curved profile, and the outer two to restrain the sides of the blade while you bend the fork blade over the curved part.

I'd certainly think that you'd want to start with an axle surrogate (piece of allthread) bolted in the dropouts.

Sounds like it's at least worth a try. But I've never done this . . .

27" for $13.58 at niagara cycle a 700c is a bit pricier

Edit: not entirely sure this is the diameter you need though.

I've straightened hundreds of forks....the method all depends where the bend is. Most forks can be easily straightened while in the bike. Some need to be removed.....some cannot be straightened to like new condition.

Forks can be bent in 4 general areas and each needs to be adressed accordingly.

1. Fork ends. Easy fix. Attach dropout aligning tools and align ends. Very straight forward.

https://www.biketoolsetc.com/index.cg...item_id=CU-011

2. Legs. The legs can be bent to either the side or back or a combination of both. If your front wheel looks 'tilted' to either side when looking at it from the front chances are the legs are bent to the side. Simple fix...grab legs and pull. If your wheel looks 'twisted' or appears to out of alignment with the crown (crown and stem are aligned but wheel is off center) one of the legs is bent back. Easy fix....grab leg and pull.

Depending on the extent of the bend a skilled mechanic can straighten legs on the bike using the dropout alignment tools. Legs that have more bend may need a mechanicl straightener like this:

https://www.biketoolsetc.com/index.cg...tem_id=PA-FFS2

More heavily bent forks will need to be removed from the bike and put in a jig. The jig is held in a vise. Crappy pic but theres at 'T' at the end of the arm that the legs align both verticlay and horizontaly.

https://www.biketoolsetc.com/index.cg...tem_id=PA-FFS2

A better pic... the 'T' slides up the long bar so you check fork leg alignment at any point along the length of the fork.

https://www.biketoolsetc.com/index.cg..._id=SN-FCG/SET

3. Bent crown. Not much you can do. Legs can bent to compensate for the crown. That about it. Bent crown are tough to ID. Usualy the front end alignment looks 'funny'. I.E. stems aligned to wheel but wheel or stem isnt perpendicular to crown although legs are straight.

4. Bent steerer. Not much you can do. Bent steerers can be ID'd by looking at the fork crown from the side. If the steerer is bend the crown spacing will be uneven in relation to the cups.

Keep in mind...if the legs are bent back, no tool is capable of measuring rake. It must be eye balled.

Jim

I don't have the bike in front of me - only when she comes visiting. I took a quick look, and it looked to me like the lower part of the one fork blade. I'll throw a long piece of iron pipe over it and try and get it back to close to straight. I know to do very small little adjustments, and I know to go easy on steel.

I'll update this week end. I asked her to leave it here.

I was talking tongue-in-cheek up there earlier - I would never, ever, not in a million years, ever try to change out a French part with anything but from a matching bike. No way.

Would a Gitane fork fit on a Peugeot? I have a parts bike I can scavenge one off of...

Now we're gettin' somewhere. Thanks.

Probably, if the frame is close to the same size. No idea if the rake/offset would be the same, though, so there may be some changes in how the bike handles.

bring your sons girlfriend with you to the shop and the grom in the back will fix it for free. This is a very easy repair with the right tools and if you have any relationship with the cool local shop they should do it for under 20.00. a french bike can handle this no prob. that's practically how they are built in the first place.