Hello,

I am new to the forums so please go easy on me and some of my questions . I have recently acquired my Mom's 73? Peugeot PX-10, and I am looking into getting it back into prime riding condition. She had this bike since new, and has kept it her pride and joy. She wanted to keep it in the family, but I was never interested in it, until recently.

I have been using a 96 Gary Fisher Tasajara (my first love) for road riding recently, but Wanted a bike better suited for paved riding ( I want to keep my dirt tires on the Tas so I can still hit the river bottoms). My mom offered her Peugeot (she hadn't been on it for 20 years due to a personal injury), and after a brief ride, I can see why she has had it so long. It rides awesome, and only needs a detail cleaning, and some new cables!

Sadly, I have been riding Mountain (or similar posture) bikes for over 20 years, and would like a straight bar setup (while keeping all the stock parts for historical reasons). I read that these bikes have a potentially dangerous head set, and would like to also replace that while I look for some straight bars, and brake levers.

I would appreciate any reasonable suggestions people can offer!

My advise would be to take the wheels, pedals, headset, and bb apart and clean the bearing and re-grease. Change the cables. Check the tires to make sure they are not dry rotted. Oil the chain and a little lube on the derailuer pivots. Adjust it up so it is comfortable for you and ride a couple hundred miles before you make any changes. You may find that you like the proper bars. Have fun. Most of the fellas on here say the PX10's ride great. Never had the experience myself.

Thanks for the advice. Not a bad idea at all, it makes sense to keep it as stock as possible, since it lasted this long. It looks like I need a special tool to access the bearings in the crank, I am researching that, and a good place to buy bare cables with the correct ends for the simplex derailleurs, and a few other Misc parts.

Either way, I have time to tinker with this, it doesn't need to be on the road this weekend

You might be able to achieve a comfortable riding position by raising the stem, or using a longer one. That's a bit complicated, as your bike has a French stem (22.0 instead of 22.2 mm diameter). It's possible to file/sand down a standard stem if you can't find a French one. Nitto makes tall ones, but not French sized. In fact I don't know if tall French quill stems ever existed.

Your headset is also French threaded, which is obsolete. (Isn't this fun?) You might be able to find a NOS one but I'd take a try at replacing the balls and putting fresh grease in the one you have. It might be fine.

As to the cranks: if they're Stronglight, you may need a special-sized tool to pull the arms. Don't use the one almost every other crank (besides TA, another oddball) takes, or you'll strip the threads in the crank arms!

Lucky Dog!

There's nothing wrong with the headset. It's probably a Stronglight Competition V-4. In my experience, they can last a very long time. I've still have the original on my '74 PX10. Maybe be you read that the stem can be dangerous rather than the headset. That's true, but only if it's an AVA. Yours is probably a Pivo or a Phillipe.

Old French stems have an odd clamp size that makes it hard to find bars for them, unless you want to use mountain bars. You're in luck, since you want to use a flat bar.

+1 on this. Very durable headset; I've only seen one that was truly gone, on 73 PX that looked like it had been ridden hard and put away wet... in a swamp. Even then only the bottom races were gone.

Not the headset that is dangerous, rather the stem:

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/velos.html

Scroll down to the discussion about stems. I have the original Pivo stem on my Gitane, I don't tend to ride it that hard and I keep an eye on it in case trouble develops.

Apparently you didn't bother to read my post and you didn't bother to read what Sheldon wrote, either. There is no mention of a problem with Pivo stems.

It is pretty easy to sand a 7/8" = 22.2mm stem down to a hard metric 22.0mm -- been there, done that on every Peugeot I have owned.

I have too. Some of those vintage French stems have a lot of style, though. I'm getting ready to put the Pivo back on my Gitane. The generic Nitto does nothing for it.

Thanks for the replies and for the clarification on the stems (correcting me from headsets). The bike still has an AVA stem (it is clearly stamped onto the top), So I will keep my eyes open on ebay for French stems from the same era. I like the stem on my U-08 but honestly don't know what it is!

I have found a place that sells the crank pulley (with the correct size / thread) for about $35, which I think I can justify. I spent the evening de-greasing and cleaning the wheels, hubs, sprockets, and other places. I now know that I need to get bearings done on the rear Normande (sp?) hubs, and will also tackle the front. Sad thing is, I attempted to access the bearings on the rear wheel, and it looks like I will need some more tools I don't have .

Does anyone have suggestions on were to buy cables for both the PX-10 and the U-08 ? I would like to replace all cables on both bikes, and hopefully retain the chrome cable guides on the PX-10

Here are some pictures of the two Peugot bikes.

PX-10


U08

Wow - how tall is your mom? And does that bike fit you? There's quite a difference between the two frames. Really nice PX-10, by the way. Looks like it's in fine condition.

Hey B5Bar, let me know if you have success in purchasing a stronglight crank puller. I'm actually in the need of one as well.

I'm having trouble believing this was "moms" bike unless she was really tall, but women do average longer legs per given body height....

It is mom's she is 6 foot tall, and so am I, so the bike fits me quite well. She used to sell Raleigh bikes back in her college days, and when they picked up Peugeot, she ended up with this bike after her prized Raleigh was hit by a car (sadly with her on it).

It has quite a bit of sentimental value for her as it was her primary transportation for most of the 80s! The bike is in good mechanical shape, however it has it's share of scratches, but the bars and mechanicals are straight and bend free, and everything works great. I just want to replace cables as preventative maintenance, and because some ends are freyed.

I will let you know if the Puller works out. I am trying to verify (with the vendor and an other site) that this is the correct puller.

https://www.biketoolsetc.com/index.cg...tem_id=SN-STEX

It is the correct puller. I would first verify you have the original stronglight crank, sometimes these have been switched over. They're easy to spot, though-- the Spider is in the shape of a star, and they generally say Stonglight on 'em. I (and many others here) could tell by looking at the above bike, but it's not a drive side photo.

Thanks for the confirmation.

Yes it is the stock stronglight crank. I spent quite a bit of time polishing it last night, and got to know it's every nook and whatnot. I think I will order the press this weekend I am going to get some tools today, and start on replacing the cables.

Here's an AVA death stem with the matching AVA death bars. It's a shame, I really like the looks of that stem.

https://cgi.ebay.com/vintage-french-a...ayphotohosting

With there reputation being as they are, I am amazed their starting bid was set that high, and that someone is buying them!

I will keep mine, but when I start my 15 mile rides (yeah I know small for people on here), I want something that won't potentially catapult me into the next state!

How did the bikes multiply? The original post was about a PX-10, now it had a baby UO-8, too?