polymorphself 

Due to my French pedal woes recently I decided to hop online and see if I could find a ratty old French bike for $20 to take the pedals off of for a build. One of the first things I saw listed was a 1972 PX10 in my size for what was already a pretty good price. Talked to the seller a little more and we ended up at an even lower price. Not what I expected but hey. So I’ll be using the pedals from this as needed and will tackle the rebuild early next year if I decide to hold onto it.

Sorry for quick and horrible DS pic. Will do better in the morning. Front wheel is bent but I didn’t notice any fork or body damage and everything is straight.

ltokuno

Looks like fun.

ryansu

seems like you could use more rear reflectors..... nice find

Charles Wahl

Well now you know that you have something those pedals will fit.

rustystrings61 

1972 PX-10s seem to be one of those "magic year" items - people who own them talk about how simultaneously they wish they had the fancy Nervex Pro lugs instead of the plainer DuBois pattern, but then they talk about the glorious ride quality, which seems to be just a bit nicer than the usual PX-10. Kinda like in the guitar world how all the collectors and writers rave about Gibson acoustic guitars built by the long-uncredited female workforce between '42 and '45, and there's an extra premium paid for the "only a Gibson is good enough" banner on the headstock - but somehow the immediate postwar 1946 guitars seem to be the real magic year units.

Very nice score!

dmark 

As an owner of a presumed 72 (plain lugs, relaxed geometry) I always wished for fancy lugs but what a sweet riding bike it is.

John E

Interesting regearing. Most folks simply replaced the 14-21 freewheel with something like a 14-28, but one of your previous owners also changed out at least one of the chainrings (stock was typical French 52-45) to provide a proper half-step ratio progression, as I would have myself.

Salamandrine 

Dang I hate when that happens!!

I had a 72 for a long time. Now that I have a nervex lugged PX10, I miss the plain lugs. Grass is always greener... I don't think there's any actual difference in "ride quality". (after decades, I still don't know what people mean by this) In my limited experience of two PX10s that I've owned, the 72 had notably better workmanship than the earlier one.

FWIW my 72 came with 42/52. Not sure if it was factory or it got swapped out at the bike shop. I'd guess it was factory. Peugeot wasn't super consistent with specs. The early one had 45/52

SurferRosa

And upon inspection, you find that bike needs pedals. Oh, great. Now you're looking for two more french donor bikes with french pedals. Hope this doesn't grow exponentially.

"I hate when that happens..."

polymorphself 

As for the lugs, I go back and forth. I like that these are pretty subdued, but of course the pro lugs are so pretty. But apparently the geometry on the 72 is slacker than the others, and I prefer that. But, with a cheap impulse buy I don’t really mind either way!

Superdan

just tap the cranks. seriously. not worth this headache.

rustystrings61 

My take is that 1972 is the last year of the slack geometry in use since the '60s. Starting in '73 one starts seeing much more upright PX-10s with steeper angles, both as PX-10Es with Nervex Pro and in the plain lug, NO black paint variant marketed as the PX-10LE c.1974. (The examples shown do NOT have box stock parts, btw - they were my riders 20 years ago) One weird little mystery to me is that when I see the steeper angled '73-74 PX-10s, I think they have the cruder, hand-stamped serial numbers impressed directly into the BB shell, rather than on the aluminum plate riveted into place.

The angles get closer to the old angles c.1975, about the same time the graphics change, but my perception is the clearances are little tighter. I could be wrong on that, though.

I also still wonder what was going on with Nervex c.1972-73, when Peugeot suddenly started using the plain DuBois lugs for the PX-10, then Raleigh uses Capella lugs for the Super Course, Competition and International. Someone with access to Nervex's records could probably tell a story of demand outstripping supply or something similar.

Steel Charlie

I had a PX-10 and a Lejune in the mid-late 70's. I do miss the Lejune sometimes.

Like Superdan said - just take about two minutes and tap the cranks. It is silly to live in a tiny French world when there is no real need.

noobinsf 

I just had a Stronglight 49d tapped to 9/16, and the guy at the shop who did it said the threads went easier than expected. He thinks it might have been tapped once before and just needed the threads cleaned up. My point is, before you go to the trouble of getting French pedals, just quickly check to make sure your cranks haven’t already been tapped.

Steel Charlie

The difference in diameters is only about 0.010" so a sharp tap would not even feel the bump. I'd bet that some bike shop morons have even been able to fit 9/16 pedals w/out a tap. Just requires some determination

oldnslo

+1 on tapping the cranks.

That's what happened on my PX10 before my stewardship of it.