1960 Peugeot PX10... Gravster!

[zidortri]

Hello retro-roadies,

Let me introduce you to my new project: a 1959 Peugeot PX10 frame turned into a road / gravel bike.

As for the name, it derives from the combination of gravel and Dragster... As this is the name a good friend of mine gave to one of my other project - a 1989 Peugeot 653 frame mated to a Columbus Minimal carbon fork. I think my friend wanted to stress that such combination was unconventional if not inappropriate

Well I disagreed and decided to embark on one of those unconventional construction... Just to make a point

Let's get started...

 

[zidortri]

Back in 2015 I acquired this 1960 Peugeot PX10 which had suffered a terrible wound inflicted by a fixie aficionado... The rear mech hanger was cut!
And adding insult to injury the original livery had been replaced by a hideous epoxy coating...
Could it get any worse?

I don't have a picture of the frame in that specific condition as I guess there was nothing one could be proud of.

However, here are a couple of pictures of that frame showing separately the two above mentioned horrible features...

 

[zidortri]

That's the original rear dropout with the rear mech hanger cut out...

 

[zidortri]

And that's - in the background, the 1960 Peugeot PX10 frame with the awful blue coating...
(Please note the white fork on the other Peugeot frame in the foreground... It will play some role)

 

[zidortri]

If you look carefully at that picture above - the one with the two frames, you will notice that the 1960 Peugeot frame has a few features/devices that have been brazed on to it... That's something I did - or I rather say I had it done, as a first step when I started this Gravster project last summer.
I sent the frame to Argos of Bristol - the frame builder not the retail store chain , and they added the following features:

 

[zidortri]

Star shaped bottle cage bosses - on the downtube only as this feature started to appear in the 1960s on Italian frames. It would only be much later that seat tube bottle cage bosses would appear. It would have therefore be periodically wrong to have such bosses brazed on this seat tube.

 

[zidortri]

Gear bosses brazed on the downtube. Till the late 70s Peugeot had their downtube gear cable stops mounted on clamp/collar. And very often there wasn't any device, bolt, boss, not even a brazing drop applied in order to prevent that clamp from sliding down along the down tube... In the process the down tube was damaged, the cable lost their tension and as a result the whole gear changing setup stopped working.
I could have opted for a discreet device - such as a mere braze drop, in order to fit a gear clamp securely, but hey... I preferred to have a proper set of gear bosses brazed both to have the most secure and effective system and also I have to admit as a revenge to those long hours of despair trying to fit that dam..d clamp or even worse trying to fix the messy system in the middle of a group ride
Yes - I admit... There was a lot of frustration with those clamps mounted without any decent stop devices decently brazed on the frame. Sorry I'm just human.

 

[zidortri]

Gear cable guides mounted on top of the bottom bracket. Those who are familiar with the Peugeot PX10 saga will be aware that when brazed gear cable guides were first introduced on the Peugeot range, the front mech cable guide was actually brazed on the lower part of the bottom bracket. I could have followed that pattern but when brazed gear cable guides first appeared on frames - mainly italian frames from the 60s, they were both brazed on top of the bottom bracket. Again I opted for a solution that was periodically correct.

 

[grantoury]

I like "unconventional construction", so I am following this one

 

[zidortri]

And the last but not the least of these additional brazed features- the rear mech hanger obviously!

As this device had been removed there were three options I could consider.

First - do nothing and use a removable rear mech hanger device. The likes of which were used on lower range bikes. Not only this wouldn't have done justice to the pedigree of that frame - it's a PX10 from the late 50s and was probably at that time one of the nicest frame available, but it would also have been a nightmare to fine tune properly the rear derailleur... if by the most unfortunate circumstances one had to replace the wheel right in the middle of a group ride. A bit like the above mentioned sliding gear cable clamp...

Second option to fix this missing rear mech hanger - going the full Monty. That is removing the existing rear dropouts and replacing both of them.

That was not satisfactory for two reasons.

Firstly this would have created damages not only to the still very nice looking chromed areas but also - and most of all, to the mechanical structure of the rear stays... These stays are more than sixty years old, they have been used, they must bear their share of mechanical fatigue. A huge thermal stress stemming from first heating the dropout-stay junction to remove the original dropouts then followed by brazing replacement dropouts would have been extremely impacting for the integrity of the rear stays.

The other reason is aesthetic. As both dropouts would have been replaced - in order to maintain a perfect symmetry and ensure a stable geometry over time, the left Simplex dropout would have had to be removed as well. And that would have been a shame as it's one of those rare examples where the left dropout is an aesthetic feature if not a feast... It has what the French call a "coma" shape and the "LJ Simplex" engraving which give the whole frame its distinctive 50s style.

Hence I had no real option but to go for the third solution - having a rear mech hanger brazed right below the dropout.

And that's precisely what Argos did. Extremely well actually, its hard to tell there was any brazing at all - unless you take a very close look at it.