cowchip500

In order to get my wife riding, I gave up on individual bikes and got an old Peugeot tandem. We've only ridden it a couple times, but my plan seems to be a success. The problem is, we live in a remote area with lots of gravel roads and chip-seal (very rocky) on the paved roads. The crusty old tires didn't last long and after the last rain, sunk in on the muddy back roads. I'm thinking about cyclocross tires. Does anyone have any thoughts? Does anyone know what size wheels they typically had on these (you can't read anything on the tires or rims)? Does anyone know what this bike is worth (I traded an old cow worth about $500 - I told you we're in a remote area ).

professorbob

Cyclocross tires will probably work well. Tire size will be marked on the sidewall of the current tires. They're probably 700x28 or so. They might be 27 inch tires, which will be marked as 27x1 1/4 or so. Cyclocross tires usually come in somewhere around 77x32. 700c and 27" tires are not compatible. Have a great time!

professorbob

If you can't read anything on the tire or the wheel, you'll probably have to take the wheel into a shop. Or if you've got a buddy, see if one of his tires will fit. The cyclocross tire idea is good if you can get them to fit both rim and frame.

jimmuller 

Nice bike! I just got through rebuilding a slightly abused Peugeot very much like yours. See https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ni!-(pic-heavy) . Haven't done much riding yet. We are still in the early learning stage. I can't tell you how much it is worth because that would depend on what people are willing to pay. However the frame, parts, and repainting on mine cost more than the $500 cow you paid!

The model name is TH8, and a mixte version was named TM8. You can find specs in the online catalogs at https://cyclespeugeot.com/ . The only two years which list the tandem are '82 and '83. A few details let you tell the difference between the years. According to the specs the '82 had a 36 spoke rear wheel, the '83 had 40. Also the '82 had a lights/fenders option with a brazed-on mount for a Soubitez bottle generator, but the '83 appears not to. Also the '82 appears to have had steel (Rigida CroLux rims), the '83 alloy rims.

Both years were spec'ed as having 700c wheels. The '82 syas 700cx32-35, which may have meant 32mm front and 35mm rear. The '83 said only 700c.

One more website you might be interested in is https://PeugeotTandem.com . There isn't a whole lot of help there yet but it's a start.

Enjoy!

zonatandem

Well, you no longer have to feed that old cow . . .
Think you got the better of the deal as that Peugeot looks to be in pretty good shape.
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

Dean V

I have found tandems to be significantly harder to control on loose/soft surfaces than a solo bike. We had 700/35 tyres on ours and they were sort of ok on hard packed gravel, but loose stuff was tricky. In fact we fell of twice in one ride at low speed up hills due to wheel spin and tyres not doing what you want. This doesn't do much for stoker confidence either. We now have a mountain bike tandem which we use for these rides (C'dale MT3000) with 26x2.125 tyres. This is far better for those kind of roads.

WebsterBikeMan

Based on Jim Muller's response you should be good with 700c. The question then is how wide a tire you can mount on those rims. To do that you need to know the inside width of the rim. You can check that the rims are the same outside width with calipers (they usually are). To get the inside width you need to deflate one tire. Then you can go to one of several sites with charts of the range of tire width appropriate for a given rim width. And you can likely get away with exceeding the upper limit by a few mm, but probably not a whole lot more. Perusing the tire manufacturer's web sites (Continental, Schwalbe are the two most popular around here, but there are others) will give you an idea of what's available in that size and relatively knobby tires.