T-Mar

I'd placed it circa 1975-1977, then I noticed there was a 1/75 date written on the label. I guess you don't have to age those tubulars.

crank_addict

Wonderful find!

Makes one wonder what else the former Peugeot shop owner has. Parts, books, advert merchandise??

John E

The PA-10 was the rarest Peugeot road bike model in the Los Angeles area. Everyone went for the UO-8 or moved up to the PR-10 or PX-10. We generally sold PA-10s with 14-26 or 14-28 freewheels and often with clinchers, in request.

T-Mar

In my region, the P10 was the rarest Peugeot but that was because the distributor didn't bother to stock it. Still, it was catalogued and we'd occasionally get inquiries about it.

The poorest selling of the models that we actually stocked was the UX10, the wired-on wheel version of the PX10. Whenever a prospective buyer would inquire about a PX10 (or even a PR10) we'd give them the spiel about the pros and cons of tubulars versus wired-on. However, once they'd hefted each bicycle, it was if they had never heard a word. They almost invariably opted for the PR10 or PX10. Of course, that was fine by the owner, who made a lot more profit by doing wired-on conversions/replacements after the vast majority of PR10 and PX10 owners got frustrated with tubulars. I don't recall replacing many freewheels, though it was a relatively flat region.

BFisher

What a beautiful bike!

I was lucky enough to score a great old bike new in box. There's nothing like new bike day.

That crankset is gorgeous. I'd keep it on there.

Congrats on the sweet find!

non-fixie 

Nice find!

And yes, I vote for keeping the steel cranks as well. They are original, hard-wearing, look great, and what's more important: they work well. I have a couple of bikes with steel cranksets and find they add a certain smoothness to the ride. Unless you're going racing or plan to do some serious climbing, the extra ozzes aren't going to matter much.

Enjoy it!

dddd

The Peugeot factory did a good job securing the bottom bracket parts and cotters, so I would definitely avoid the trouble of servicing the bb so as to avoid destroying the precious original hardened cotters.
I would however drip some heavy oil into the bb on each side, along the spindle, giving it plenty of time to reach the bearings. There are thankfully no bearing retainers to worry about dragging heavily through old grease.

Bike shops have used halogen lights in showrooms for a long time, and when the outer Pyrex lens doesn't get replaced after a bulb/lamp replacement there will be dangerous UV radiation emanating from it. I've seen many articles of clothing and packaging materials from bike shops with obvious such exposure, which is also dangerous to the eyes. It can do funny things to paint, as here where perhaps this frame was on display at one time (with or without it's plastic wrapper).
Outgassing from plastics/rubber over time can also discolor paint, especially if the temperature is attic-hot.

Cool bike to find! And BTW I did come across one of those UX10's with 27" wheels some years ago.

scozim 

Great score. That's one of my favorite looking cottered cranksets.

peter_f

The discoloration was not there when i unboxed the bike (i would have noticed right away), it was not there when the bike was out of the shrink-wrap for a couple of hours in daylight, but only took place when i rode the bike and that side of the bike was exposed to the sun for an hour or so.
Anyway, who knows a method to cure this problem, if there is any?

himespau 

Take your next ride in the opposite direction, so both sides get equal sun?

francophile 

I don't think the discoloration is from the sun. I think it's probably from off-gassing of the tire. Notice the pattern is perfectly round matching the position and arc of the wheel when it was packaged.

I'd guess the off-gassing of the rubber actually interacted with the clear coat. I don't know what you could do to reverse that - they've probably intermingled and firmed up at this point.

And that's not something you would've been able to protect or predict before buying! You could try rubbing a cutting compound lightly into one of the less obvious areas to see if it helps fade at all. If so, you know how to fix elsewhere.

PS - my guess is you'll find similar but less distinct discoloration on the insides of the chainstays where the tire passed by.

peter_f

Looking at i.imgur.com/Odi5jfC.jpg , i think you're right (the top of the air pump also has a yellowish discoloration on the side the wheel is resting on)

francophile 

Yep. Surprised they didn't wrap that wheel in brown paper like the bars. Side by side:

verktyg 

The tires out-gassing into the clearcoat probably resulted in photosensitive areas that UV exposure resulted in discoloration. Peugeot as well as Motobecane used thick clear coating that tended to "yellow" over the years.

Sulfur compounds in the rubber may be the culprits. The clearcoat on the top tube can be removed with rubbing compound but the discoloration may have reached down into the white pigment.

White pigments have been made with titanium dioxide for years but some paints used the old zinc oxide compound which yellowed when exposed to sulfur.

verktyg

dddd

Ah ha, it was the tire. I very much doubt that it will rub off based on my experience with the marks left by rubber shims of bike computers.
On the plus side, the tire shadow becomes part of this bike's unusual life-story!

This makes me wonder about how safe that the air is to breath where tires are stored in the open, not bagged, something that I have wondered for years.

I once googled the likes of "butyl air hazard" and came up with little, but where bikes/tires are stored in the common air of a dwelling, I would be concerned about the various hazards of indoor air possibly being made far worse.
When I refurbed and "finished" my basement I purposely didn't plumb any hvac to it but added a couple of windows instead (which I normally keep closed to exclude dust). The bike storage area does smell notably weird at certain times. It seems highly variable when the humidity changes (though it's not any sort of mildew problem since it's quite arid here, the floor has plastic under it and there is a ventilated crawl space under that).
I suspect that changes in humidity cause oxidized butyl to suddenly out-gas for a short while.
Certainly there is a lot going on, chemically, as tires age.

@CHAS, just now seeing your post, those seem like astute observations/theory.

repechage

You could send them your observations on long long long term storage effects.

francophile 

No way, not saying a peep unless they give me a wrapped mid-70s PY10 in my size! I know someone's got one somewhere!

Millstone

Nice!
Few years ago I stumbled on a 54 cm Pug, like this one, wrapped. On "Marktplaats" (the local CL-variant ).


Didnt buy it, too small.

Enjoy the bike, enjoy the ride. Take plenty of pictures!