French traders
 

Okay y’all, here is my dilemma. I’ve been looking to build a nice lightweight (lightweight by vintage standards) geared bike for my wife. I’ve had this old Peugeot UO-8 clone sitting around for years. I wanted to use this, but the hole for the rear brake is drilled at the wrong angle, it actually goes perpendicular to the tire. So I thought of using an old internal brake Shimano Nexus hub I had laying around. But with drop bars, a thumb shifter just won’t work for her. So now I’m back to square one; STI or bar end shifters on an old lightweight frame. The problem is, I don’t have any other lightweight frames. Then I got to thinking, this old French bike would make a great fixie. So…

If any of you have a lightweight of little value (around 55-57 cm seat tube) that you’ve been thinking of converting, would you be willing to make a trade? If you are, I’ll even throw in the wheel set for this bike – they claim to be 28 inch, but they are smaller than the old rod brake sized wheels, I think it was just the result of confusion when people were switching to metric (also, one of the wing nuts on wheels is broken).

I am building up an old UO-8 right now. I was only going to put a front brake on it. Unless you are going to build this as a single speed, not a fixie, I think that is all you need. Do it!

BTW, what is the spacing on your rear dropouts? Mine is about 118mm clear, 120mm on center which means I have to spread the dropouts with just a little finger pressure to slide in a typical 120mm fixed gear wheel in place - but it seems to sit and track straight. I assume that my dropouts got mashed slightly at some point in the last 35 years and that is why they are a little off.

Actually, I'd like to build a 10 to 14 (or 16) speed. But I'd prefer to use a different frame.