Yep, I went ahead and decided to get mixed up in a French bike.
Mon dieu.
With my luck with French machines, I should have named this thread
Le Porteur de Merde, but those of you who follow
WGB may remember this thing was part of his "
Mystery Meat" threads. Thus, Viande Mystère it shall remain.
This is a placeholder for tomorrow's arrival from BikeFlights, provided UPS didn't run over it, so here are some pictures I stole from WGB's thread and a few that
bertinjim sent me. I'm getting the frame and BB
only.
It's a PX10 of questionable vintage, with dropouts that indicate a post-'73 build (from what I've read) and a threaded bottom bracket port that suggests a 1960's bike. And a BB with a serial that makes no sense - 69962.
Thankfully, I don't care. The plan for the build is to see how well it converts into a relatively fast porteur build from curiously suitable spares kicking around. If I like it, I'll have it re-sprayed in the old 1960's blue and yellow, a-la PLX10 - but with porteur bars and fenders.
Think this (pic:
Bikeville thoughts: Cool Shop Bike: late 1950's Peugeot PX-10):
Mixed with this:
But the goal is to get it into a ridable pile of
merde first. Once again, I plan on making copious use of the parts that came off the plastic-lugged abomination that is this Union-badged Polycarbonex. It turned out to be a treasure trove of bits, with Weinmann 700C rims (gotta clean 'em!) and the 25.0 steel porteur bar that was in the 25.4 SR stem.
I also plan on trying out the Altenburger dual-pivots that came on it. Part of the plan is an attempt to drill them for tighter Oillite bushings to stiffen them up on the pivot studs. Don't know if it'll work or not, and I'm not
that concerned if I screw 'em up.
A pair of Cane Creek 200TT levers came on some bars I ordered for my '80 Raleigh Sports, so those will be used as-is for now, and polished later.
-Kurt