Damien1993

hi

i am on the verge of starting into my first fixie project.
i got a Peugeot PBN 10 I think early 1980s.

its a pale silvery blue colour with minor some minor surface rust on the frame.

can you guys give me some advice/ tips on what you would do with the bike.

I can’t post photos yet as I’m new to this forum.

thanks!

veganbikes

Best thing to do is if the bike is in really good condition components wise, fix it up and ride it as is. Otherwise I might pass, French standards aren't as fun to deal with these days granted you can still get quality bottom brackets and some other parts that are french threaded or french sized but all in all it is tough and so doing a good conversion might take some effort. Certainly double check with some ATAX experts about the stem because it could have been one of their death stems (IE: prone to cracking). The frame isn't high end steel and you can find good Columbus or Reynolds or Tange frames pretty easily so that might add to your decision.

If you are truly interested in bikes you should check out the forums and post around a bit. This is a great forum with some great people and interesting opinions and ideas. Getting to 10 posts is super easy here unless you hate bikes or are only here for yourself than I guess it will be harder.

rustystrings61 

You will want to look at the BB cups to see what they are marked. Peugeots up to about 1982 will probably be metric, so a BB cup marked 35x1; after that year, look for cups marked 1.37 x 24 TPI or something similar. If the latter, no big deal and modern parts should fit just fine. If it's metric gauge and threaded, so long as your headset and bottom bracket are in good shape and can be rebuilt, you're still okay. You mainly need to worry about the top half of the headset and the BB cups; bearings and spindles can be replaced, or if still reusable, just take off the big ring and used single chainring bolts and use the small ring in the inner position. It'll line up fine. On the headset, it's usually the bottom that wears out, and you can do what I did with a Swiss/French threaded bike and run a cleaned up old French top half with the crown race, lower cup and bearings from a basic Tange headset. It works beautifully.

If it's an 80s bike with an ATAX stem with allen key fittings, you should be fine. The infamous "Death Stem" Peugeot used was the AVA, a cast hollow aluminum unit with hex bolts used in the 60s and early 70s. Combined with AVA bars, which were flimsy and tended to droop on the ends after a few years, they were an accident waiting to happen.

Is there a tubing decal? Do you have Carbolite 103, which is a pretty basic mild steel, or some variant of Vitus or Reynolds tubing?

REDMASTA

clean it up ride as is.

TMonk

I changed the thread title from "Dixie" build to "Fixie" build. I figured it was a typo given the proximity of the keys. @Damien1993 LMK if you want it changed back.

Aubergine 

Alright, a counterpoint. French bike differences are *not* difficult to deal with. The biggest difficulty is figuring out what threads and tubing sizes the bike has, and that, frankly, is not really that hard, is it? Once you know what the bike requires it is not hard to find bottom brackets (sealed or cup and cone), seat posts, headsets, and stems. The parts will be of good quality too.

As for the “death stem,” check any stem (AVA or otherwise) to see if there are any cracks at the top of the slit that allows the base of the stem to expand when the binder bolt is tightened. Any stem that uses vertical slots can crack there. The issue with AVA stems is that they has two slots, making the chances of failure much worse.

Bandera

Do this:

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/fixed-conversion.html