Hi all,
I have a Peugeot Marseilles bicycle from the late 1980s; it
was my bike when I was in high school. I pulled it out of
the storage shed and it's in pretty sad shape, but it holds
some sentimental value for
me. It's too small for me today, but I've often thought of
putting some work into it to get it into working shape,
and maybe giving it to someone who could use it.
I can't find much information about this bike on the web;
I'm not even sure it qualifies as a "French" bicycle, as I'm
not sure what the state of the Peugeot company was at that
time in history.
I rode that bike everywhere back then; I can even remember
all the problems I had with it:
* SIS index shifters that never indexed quite properly.
* A "skipping" crank/bottom bracket. On some pedal
revolutions, the cranks would "slip" a little and then
catch again, accompanied with a "popping" noise. The
problem existed from the start, no matter how many times I
took it to the shop it was never corrected. Of course, I
didn't know any better back then, and in retrospect, I
don't have that high an opinion of the shop I visited.
* Wheels that didn't seem to line up properly when seated in
the hangers. I'm not sure whether it was a frame alignment
issue from the start, or if it was related to the one
crash I had ...
I had one crash, where another cyclist ran into my rear
wheel from the side and taco'ed it. I replaced it at the
time with a brand new wheel. But I seem to remember both
wheels having alignment issues, where I could never get the
brakes to line up properly with the rims (if the wheels were
seated fully in the hangers, it seemed like the wheels were
skewed relative to the rest of the frame).
From this description, if the frame does have alignment
problems, how difficult would it be to correct those? I'm
guessing the whole project will likely be a costly
undertaking, both in finances and time, but part of me wants
to do it just for the satisfaction (and the learning).
Jason