[CR]1971 Unpleasant French rendezvous

(Example: Production Builders:Peugeot:PY-10)

To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
From: "Bianca Pratorius" <biankita@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2004 15:36:17 -0400
Subject: [CR]1971 Unpleasant French rendezvous

I can't remember if I ever mentioned this story on this list. I have told so many stories to so many people, so many places. Forgive me if someone recalls this from three years ago when I was a frequent poster.:

It was 1971 and I was just about to graduate high school. I somehow saved up enough money to buy a new Peugeot U08 in blue. I went over to the east side of Manhattan ( I lived on the west side). There was a bicycle shop that was selling so many Peugeots that even though it was still wintery and cold I had to wait in line just to place my order. The U08 if I remember was the cheapest at around $120.00 total. I had to wait an entire week because it was the bike boom and there simply were not enough 10 speeds to go around, especially at that low price. The next week I picked up my freshly prepped bike and rode around for a couple of hours. It was nice that Mafac included a tool set with the bike because nothing on this bike worked right. The brakes squealed, the rear derailleur simply would not work no matter what I did to it ( nor anyone else over the next weeks). The seat was cheap and uncomfortable, but the paint was beautiful lovely decals. I was somewhat schooled in biking mechanics because I had read books and had taken the Popular Mechanics step by step course published in their mags on how to do everything including take apart the freewheel and clean the pawls and reassemble using dental floss and thick grease. (This is really what they used to suggest).

A couple of months later I was tooling around on a weekend in Central Park, as I somehow learned to live with lessened expectations based on the reality of cheap entry level Simplex. I was listening to a harpist in one of the smaller tree covered meadows when a dope addict came up on me a pointed a gun right at my chest. I was slow to get off the bike I was straddling, and unable to even scream (good thing). I just let him have it and watched him bike away. I notified the police who drove me around the park and of course I never recovered that bike.

A few weeks later a friend told me about a greenish blue Atala that was sitting unused in a high rise basement. I went check it out and saw a dusty, greasy run down bike with lots of miles, scratches and bad mismatched touch up paint. It could not be ridden because the owner had tried to replace the cotter pin and a piece of the old one was still jammed in the hole. I paid $30, I believe, and took it home. After an hour I was able to drive the old cotter out by constructing a wood platform and using a punch and hammer. I washed the old bike down and greased it up. Everything was perfect. The Valentinos shifted great front and back and they were easy to set up. The Weinmann Centerpulls seemed like high tech miracles and the thing came with one of the nicest Swallow style leather seats from some off brand called Universe or Unity or something. I rode that thing for the next four years putting major daily miles and I always loved it, and it never let me down.

Nowadays for $300 you can buy a mountain bike that shifts wonderfully has aluminum everything. You can buy a decent road bike for $500. You won't get lugs or steel, but you will get a perfectly straight aluminum frame that wont last ten years, but will give the owner immediate pleasure. If the bike industry put their minds to it for a couple of hundred $$$ more they could mass produce beautiful steel lugged bikes that really would be worth owning.
    Garth in Miami Shores