Daphnesmit

Hi guys!

i am totally new to rebuilding bikes.
i want to modernize my vintage peugeot aubisque a little.

what i did myself is:
new tape
new brakes shimano sora black
new brake cable yellow

i now want to upgrade the wheels to some nice a little bit higher rims.
the current rims are about 20mm? At least the tires are 23mm - 622
What kind of wheels could i look at and what do i need to be aware of when looking for parts for a vintage bike like this?

do i also need to replace the casette, crankset, chain etc? And what is something that would fit on this bike? Its currently a 6 speed cassette.


I would like to post a picture of it but i cant since i dont have enough posts yet

its a peugeot aubisque from 86 or so.

edit: a great thanks!
basically i am looking for some simple tips to get me started on the right track.

Looked already in a thread with over 300 posts about retros with sti’s but that had so much information and so many cool different bikes that i still have a hard time to know what to look for. (Got lost clicking 100 pages through. So awesome!)

also people often say: the parts cost much more than the bike. But thats not the point when its a hobby and i own it now for 10yrs plus so its my baby

cb400bill

Pic Assist - https://www.bikeforums.net/g/picture/23255870

Germany_chris

If you are going to buy new wheel you’re doing to have to re-think the entire drivetrain because you’ll changing from freewheel to cassette.

jamesdak 

Is there a reason the rear brake was put on the inside of the seatstays vs the outside? The bend in the cable housing should be adjusted for better operation.

If going for a modern wheelset then I think you'll have to consider rear spacing. I suspect your at 126mm right now so spreading the rear dropouts to 130mm will open up a whole new world for you. You may find that your current DT and RD will friction shift over a more modern cassette with no problem once properly adjusted. That'll allow anything from 8-11 speeds in back although shifting might get funky the higher number of gears you have. The crank may very well work ok. You'll want to match your chain to the cassette. An 8 speed chain will also work for 6 or 7 speeds in the back. 9, 10, and 11 speed cassettes will work best with a matching chain.

John E

This awkward placement avoids crossing the rear brake cable from right to left, which would also be awkward. The brake cable routing is a superb argument for the traditional and versatile routing of the brake cable along the top of the top tube, ala Peugeot PX-10s of the early 1970s, or my 1982 Bianchi.

jamesdak 

It didn't even register where that cable was coming out at. Shouldn't type before my first cup of coffee, LOL!

So yeah just clean up that bend a bit and should be cool!

I wish I had a picture ot the 80's Peugeot I had in Germany. So want to reproduce that bike for nostalgic reasons.

jdawginsc 

Welcome aboard! Very sharp Peugeot!

A few questions to ask yourself as you ponder updates
(0) What is the use...towner? gravel-ish? Fast sport tourer?
(1) Do you want it to index shift? Some friction shifters and RDs can handle 8 speeds (SunTour VGT, AR, Cyclone (I think)).
(1A) What range are you looking for? Mountains? Mostly flat? Gravel?
(2) Do you want the shifters to remain on the down tube, or do you want brifters, or bar ends?
(3) How many speeds are you wanting to have...? You can either respace or can probably use 126 spacing and just spread the stays when you put in the wheel.
(4) For the wheels, what price are you comfortable with? This might be a good look locally at FB Marketplace and Craigslist ads for nicer used wheelsets
(4B) you have to be careful about clearance with the tires. Some bikes don't have clearance for more than 28mm wide tires. You might have to use your current wheels and see what the largest tire is you can squeeze in there.
(5) Most vintage cranks I have found will handle through a 9 speed chain. 10 and 11 are a bit thinner.
(6) If opting for indexing, rather than friction, there are some speeds that are easier to find than others if going the used/vintage part direction. I know 7 speed is tough to find, 8 speed can be pricey, and for some reason is the speed choice where different versions don't play nicely together. 9 speed seems to be most available and has Sora available.
(7) Vintage or newish...?

Hope this helped you narrow it down a bit.

Dfrost 

Highly recommend high quality wider (28mm or more) tires at lower pressures. Huge gains in comfort, no loss of speed. Avoid those with stiff casings and “flat resistant” tires. Looks like your frame has enough clearance. 22-23mm external width rims are nice and add a bit of extra tire volume.

BTinNYC 

Nice bike in super clean condition!

Here's my 2 cents; put good quality wider tires on the existing wheels & rims. Your local shop can advise on width and fitment. I put 38 mm wide tires on my similar Peugeot workhorse with no problem. I like the Panaracer Pacelas, I find them to be a fair mix of light weight, durability and price.

If there's hills that require different gearing, by all means look at gear options. Sadly, new freehub wheelsets are often going for stupid money during our supply chain mess.

Daphnesmit

@Germany_chris Good one! i just youtubed what the difference is between casette and freewheel. so basically all new tires use casette these days and older ones were freewheel right. so what i thought is correct. it would need more changing than just tires.
@jamesdak somehow it didnt fit putting the brake on the top. i couldnt get it well aligned with the rim. it might fit again with different tires but the left right thing i didnt really check it that would be awkward.

jdawginsc : I will try to answer as well as possible haha:
) What is the use...towner? mostly used in the city (yes a straight bar would be better but i like it to still have a normal racing bike look. but its the reason i removed the toe-clips for your feet)
(1) Do you want it to index shift? Some friction shifters and RDs can handle 8 speeds (SunTour VGT, AR, Cyclone (I think)). just googled the difference. I dont think i would need index shifting per se. keep it simple.
(1A) What range are you looking for? Mountains? Mostly flat? Gravel? I live in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Now you can guess obviously its flat gehehe.
(2) Do you want the shifters to remain on the down tube, or do you want brifters, or bar ends? honestly i dont really have a preference. here i'd probably want to go with cheapest and simplest solution.
(3) How many speeds are you wanting to have...? You can either respace or can probably use 126 spacing and just spread the stays when you put in the wheel. the same I have now is enough. I dont need more. Id prefer the shifting just to be as easy as possible. if 9 is now the standard. i can go with 9. no preference though.
(4) For the wheels, what price are you comfortable with? This might be a good look locally at FB Marketplace and Craigslist ads for nicer used wheelsets. Yeah I thought about that. I saw Mavic Aksium, Shimano wheels R501 or Vision Team 30 or DT Swiss P 1800 Spline set
(4B) you have to be careful about clearance with the tires. Some bikes don't have clearance for more than 28mm wide tires. You might have to use your current wheels and see what the largest tire is you can squeeze in there. I will measure that. its not sure wide.
(5) Most vintage cranks I have found will handle through a 9 speed chain. 10 and 11 are a bit thinner.
(6) If opting for indexing, rather than friction, there are some speeds that are easier to find than others if going the used/vintage part direction. I know 7 speed is tough to find, 8 speed can be pricey, and for some reason is the speed choice where different versions don't play nicely together. 9 speed seems to be most available and has Sora available.
(7) Vintage or newish...? Newish is fine.


Dfrost I didnt even know you could but wider tires. I tried once to fit wider tires in the rim and couldnt make it work. I now have Vredestein Fortezza Senso Xtreme Weather ETRTO: 23-622 (back tire old continental ultrasports)
Definetly would go for 23mm wide rims for new then.

BTinNYC thnx! I keep the bike indoors and use mucoff protect spray to prevent any rust! you managed to get those tires on these rims wow! But i am specifically looking to upgrade the wheels because it looks more awesome

RustyJames 

Welcome! Great looking bike!

Good advice has already been given but what does modernizing mean to you? Are you going for aesthetics or mechanicals? A black bike will adapt well aesthetically since modern components are mostly black.

If you’re aiming for modern components to change the riding experience then I think you made a great choice upgrading the brakes first. To my way of thinking the other major thing is the drivetrain. Do you want to shift from the handlebars or are you happy with the existing shift lever location? Once you’ve decided that you get into personal preferences and adapting them to work. To make it very modern you would swap to a 1xmulti-speed rear cassette. From there, post questions and the gurus here are glad to assist.

I think black deep rim wheels would look aces on your bike but that’s just my opinion. 🙂

BTinNYC 

Not quite, new tires will absolutely fit on your older rims.

But to update your drivetrain with new gearing and indexed shifters, that will push you toward a freehub.

Daphnesmit

RustyJames : thnx! yeah I want to go a bit for both. mostly aesthetically but I don't want to put rubbish alieexpress components on it just because they are black. Just like to go for the cheaper 'A' brand stuff.
But the brakes really helped a lot since the groupset it uses sucks ass (sorry to say). shifting is also not super smooth so if I can improve there aswell that would be great. I could probably just go with one of the cheaper modern solutions for shifting. might already be a huge difference.
I was also thinking black rims would be amazing indeed! thnx a lot.

BTinNYC : I said tires but i meant wheels.

So basically, correct me if I am wrong, I need 'something' like this:
- keep rim brake,
- Mavic Aksium, Shimano wheels R501 or Vision Team 30 or DT Swiss P 1800 Spline set or Bontrager Aeolus Comp 5 TLR or such wheels?
- some 9/10 speed casette and god knows whats needed; derrailleur, chain, crank?

I can probably get my local bike store to assist!

bikemig 

Nice bike. What is wrong with the wheels? The rims do not likely limit how wide a tire you can fit on this bike; the frame and brakes may well limit you to 32c (or maybe a 28c).

If you all you want is a wider tire and click shifting, you can likely do this on your existing wheels (unless the rear hub is a helicomatic) .

With new wheels, you have two choices. You can get new 126 OLD wheels and run a 7 speed freewheel. The advantage is that you will not have to spread the rear triangle. You can click shift (bar ends, brifters) on 7 if that is what you want. Velomine sells good quality 126 OLD wheels that use a freewheel at a very reasonable price. 7 speed indexing freewheels are available.

Or you can go 130 OLD, buy a modern wheel set with cassettes and go with brifters, etc.

It's your call but you may be able to achieve what you want to do at a lower cost if you think through the alternatives.

cooperryder

There are some great responses for possible changes to your Peugeot.

If it's of any help...
I recently picked up a 1984 Peugeot PGN-10 and stripped it down and rebuilt it.

B4 and after pics here.
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...l#post22323708

Besides the unusual seat post issue described in that thread my rebuild went well.

My particular frame has a British threaded bottom bracket and also allowed for a 22.2 stem.

I'm finding mine to be a great riding bike.

I'm running Jack Brown 700c x 33.3 mm wide tires on it.

Good luck.

repechage

I am not sure, but the top tube ports for the brake cable might have the housing running full length. If so, slide the housing forward and make a more graceful arc from the tube exit to the brake. if this is the case, a strategically placed zip tie can restrain movement.
If not, consider trimming the length just before the caliper.
On both front and rear brakes, I would have the cable housing pass behind the bar for both brakes.
Your front brake housing is a bit short, for me, it would get in the way of removing and re gripping my hand from the bar.

Tires...others have mapped out possibilities, you might be able to run 28's even with the rims you have. exchanging rims is going to introduce you to different frame with, freewheel to cassette... maybe exceeding the capacity of the rear mech to swing inboard and or the shift lever to take up enough cable.
An alternate would be to rebuild the wheels. Not cheap and of I think marginal gain unless you have a hop or dent.

repechage

Something is going on with the rear shift cable not too far behind the lever, I would be expecting it to be a straight line to the bottom bracket cable guide, its not.

jdawginsc 

Hi again Daphne,

I sort of figured Netherlands with "Smit" as the surname? Which means disregard Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace I guess. And I couldn't really find anything on ebay from my side, but that's because i couldn’t translate into Dutch what I was really looking for.

I think I have an idea now. I am assuming city, no hills (the Lowcountry...which is what they call where I live in South Carolina, US), cheap, drop bars rather than straight down-tube okay, friction okay.

*Here's the cheapest solution...get wider tires/tyres, and enjoy the ride as is. You could easily go to 28 or 30 I would think. You have the dreaded helicomatic freewheel so you are limited there anyway (not cassette).
**If you want to lighten things a little, the seatpost would be reasonably cheap. Might get a cheap one in black too~~

***If you want new wheels, 6,7,speed have the same spacing (126mm). Or if you have a little strength in your hands you could probably get away with using a 130mm hub (spacing for 8,9,10 speeds) and just squeeze in the wheel, or if you wanted to re-space it to 130 there are plenty of ways (good and bad), your derailleur MAY work shifting as a friction derailleur Huret Eco is not the sharpest shifter I have heard) If not, SunTour Cyclone seems to be able to shift 8, possibly 9 speeds as a friction guy.
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cribsheet-spacing.html
Respacing from 126 to 130
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/frame-spacing.html

Aksium are good decent rims, mixed reviews on Shimano R500...not sure about the other two.

If you can find a modern 140 hub on blank Mavic open Pro or even older ones like grey MA40s those wheels are bombproof.

microcord

The gearing of that bike would be too high for the combination of the hills near where I live and my feeble old muscles -- but it doesn't worry you. The notion of downtube shifters scares many people, but you're happy with them (and I am too). Your new brakes probably improved your braking, but you've already installed them. Tyres that are rather bigger would be more comfortable, but they'll fit on your current rims.

What's unsatisfactory about the current rims? If nothing in particular, there's nothing much to do. Beyond bigger tyres, you can spend a fair amount of money and a lot of time "modernizing" this bike without actually improving it in any way that's likely to be significant for you. (And arguably the result will be uglier.)

That said, although my hands are averagely sized for an adult male, I prefer rather smaller brake levers. These don't cost much (and of course do not necessitate changes or "upgrades" elsewhere). And in order to equip your bike for adventure, you might attach a bottle cage to the frame.

PS

While I was writing this message, jdawginsc wrote a message (above) whose gist is similar but that is better. I'd differ slightly in one place, though.

True, but when you've just fixed a puncture by the side of the road and you're shivering in the cold, you'll wish that you had at least one more arm to get the damn wheel back into the frame, or (better) that the dimensions were exactly right.

TPL

You likely have a FREEWHEEL on this bicycle ....NOT a 'cassette'

jdawginsc 

Yep. Helicomatic.

jdawginsc 

Mavic CXP 21 can often be found with decent hubs in black...they are nice rims

Easton and DT also make rims in black.

Aksium and Shimano R500 are probably the more cost effective.



Based on my reading around...for 8 and 9 speed friction shifting...
—SunTour Cyclone or AR rear derailleur with either SunTour power shifters or regular friction.
—Shimano 9 speed Ultegra or Tiagra.

I wonder if Deore Lx stuff would shift well with road gearing and friction...

repechage

Heliomatic... you are on borrowed time on those hub bearings.
I do not think that Huret rear mechanism will swing inboard enough to get 8 cogs, maybe 7.
I have mine shifting 6 and the limit screw may not provide much more.

randyjawa 

The most important tip that I can offer a newbie is to make the bike road worthy and safe to ride "as found". Forget about upgrading at the onset. Just get to know the bike. There are, however, two things that you could do immediately...

One, your rear brake caliper is installed wrong and dangerous in my opinion. The caliper goes on the back side of the seat stays brace...


Two, get rid of that low quality seat post and install an alloy indexing model...


New cables, and casings if necessary, new brake blocks, trued wheels, complete regreasing and good tires is where I would start. Regreasing of the bottom bracket, head set and wheel hubs is really important for performance and durability issues...


Go for the upgrades once you get to know the bike and become familiar with what you like and don't like. By then you will be in a much better position to make informed decisions as to what to change or upgrade.

As for bright yellow cable housing, not a chance in my book. Any single item that draws the eye away from the entire machine is not to my liking but that is just me.