----- Original Message ----- From: "John Betmanis" <johnb@oxford.net> To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 10:04 PM Subject: Re: [CR]What else; Am I crazy/Peugeot
> But were they the same bikes you bought at the LBS or custom frames with
> Peugeot decals? That was usually the case with with most mass market brand
> names.
If you look up in archives I think a CR List member actually saw Thevenet's TdF winning PY-10 from '77 or '75 in Montreal and pronounced it "stock". Of course, team members got custom-sized frames but I defy anyone to look at them and say "oh that's different from mine". Pingeon's '67 PX-10 on which he won the TdF '67 looks as stock as they come. Thevenet's PX-10 in the '70 TdF (his first) is identical to mine including it looks like frame size. Except it's beat to s*** with worn decals and paint chips galore! Merckx rode a stock PX-10 in the '67 Paris-Roubaix and the only difference one can discern from photos is that he's got Universal brake levers instead of Simplex ones. Photos of the '63 Peugeot team show that they didn't waste a lot of money either.... several of the machines are still in the old blue/yellow livery and the rest in the new white and black.
The Peugeot catalogues I have from the late '70s into the early '80s indicate that "Prestige" PY models were custom-made to order with an impressive choice of specs, 531 SL or 753, component choice i.e. titanium spindles or steel etc., frame sizes from 50 to 63 cm in practically 1 cm increments and in a choice of six colours. And when it was delivered you got a certificate signed by the frame builder. So not quite off the shelf tat. And except for the tubing, it was 100 per cent French designed and manufactured.
Peter Kohler
Washington DC USA