1973 Peugeot PX10

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I’ve always heard about the PX10 but never really seen one.  My uncle always talked about it.  He told me back in the day that he was the only one in St. Cloud that had the Peugeot PX10.  I guess it was kind of a big deal.  Why was it a big deal one may ask? Well, the PX10 was sort of revolutionary in that it was a legitimate lightweight racing bike at an affordable price.  That’s what I’ve heard and read anyways.  Over the years I have always been on the look out for one, and eventually I had an opportunity to buy one.

I was searching on eBay out of pure boredom in order to kill some time.  I happened to do a local search on vintage bicycles and saw a miraculous blue PX10 for sale out of Minneapolis.  The guy was asking $400, which I thought was very reasonable.  Everybody has the white one and to have a blue one would of been awesome!  I got in contact with the person and well luck wasn’t on my side for he had just sold it.  However, he said he had another that was boxed up in parts that he would sell me for $200.  This was even a better deal for me since half the fun is restoring the bike!  I gladly accepted!

This particular PX10 has the diagonal Reynolds 531 sticker on the down-tube which from my research puts a date on it of 1973-1978 or around that time.  For some reason I thought maybe it was a 76?  But according to the those that know Peugeot’s a lot more than I do say it’s a 73.   Apparently the last year the Reynolds sticker was on the seat tube was 1972?  Some common questions I’ve read is; how do you know its a PX10?  There are similar models made by Peugeot like the PR10 etc.  It could also be a UX-10.  Apparently the UX-10 was identical to the PX-10 except the UX-10 had super champion clinchers instead of tubulars and my peugeot has super champion clinchers.  So it could very well be a UX10 if there was such a thing.  Lot of them are very similiar.  Apparently Peugeot made it extremely difficult to identify it’s bikes, even with serial numbers.  Here’s a great website that helps in dating your Peugeot PX-10. My serial number on this specific Peugeot wasn’t very helpful.  If I interepreted the serial codes correctly then this bike would be from 1971 and I don’t realisitically think it is.  At any rate, this peugeot is either a PX10, UX10? or some higher end variation of it.  The give away for me is the chrome fork, chrome chain stays, the Simplex Criterium derailleur, brooks saddle, the Reynolds 531 frame and fork tubing, and the stronglight headset and crank.  The only thing it doesn’t have is the tubular rims.  I see a lot of people mistaken U-08 as a PX10.  They both have a similiar paint scheme but the U-08 doesn’t have the reynolds 531 tubing, stronglight crank and headset, chrome fork and chainstay, and the simplex criterium rear deraileur.  All in all the bike is light and only weighs around 23lbs.  Somewhere down the road I’d like to put the tubular wheelset on it and drop the weight another pound or so.

I think collectors get a little carried away at what model their Peugeot is and get scared of the titles of the different variations.  This is probably because most have only heard and recognized the PX10 as Peugeot’s top model bike.  Where as Peugeot had a lot of high end variations of it.  Whatever model this is, I could easily put the correct tubular rims and hubs on it and then call it a PX10.  So a lot of the different high end models are basically just one of the same.  The main thing is if it has a Reynolds frame with chrome stays then I know I got something decent.

Putting it together wasn’t to much of a hassle.  The only potential problem I ran into was the stronglight crank.  The crank needs a special crank puller, and finding one can be difficult and expensive.  I worked on a similiar bike with stronglight components and succesfully removed the crank with a automotive gear puller.  You can read about it here.  Although it was a little more time consuming it did work and was an inexpensive work around instead of buying the stonglight puller. I would side on the side of caution though, the crank arms are aluminum so a person would have to be careful not to bend the crank when using a gear puller.  If you want the correct tool then get a stronglight crank puller on EBAY which can usually be had for 40 bucks or order through JA stein. They seem to be the only company that makes them here in the states.  Luckily for me it was already dismantled when I bought it so I didn’t have to purchase the crank puller.    If you’re looking to buy the tool here’s a link to their website and the crankpuller.

Although the bike is light for it being steel, the simplex components are less than desirable in my opinion.  The rear and front derailleur are both made solely out of plastic.  This saves the PX10 weight, however the functionality and dependability is a concern.  Specifically, the front simplex derailleur has a problem of cracking by the fitting bolt.  I have had success using epoxy to fix this on similar bikes that carry the simplex components.  Although the epoxy does work, I was lucky enough to find non broken replacements for cheap.  Even if the derailleur is in good condition the functionality is still quite poor.  I’ve had a lot of issues with it not shifting down to to the smaller chain ring.  On this specific PX10 the rear simplex criterium derailleur and front simplex derailleur were both in good condition and actually function somewhat decent.  I guess I got lucky this time around.  My rear criterium did have a broken jockey wheel though.  The jockey wheels actually have loose ball bearings.  I looked on eBay to find a replacement but again they are way to expensive.  I had some non bearing jockey wheels from some old simplex non-criterium components lying around so that is what I replaced it with.

The Mafac brake system are also less than desirable.  Although they look nice when cleaned up and shined, they perform horribly.  The screeching sound when applied to the braking surface of the rim is quite a annoying sound.  My Mafac brakes cleaned up super nice!  I was quite proud of how they turned out!  Koolstop even makes replacement pads for them!  I found some on Amazon here.  They look stylish, I just wish they wouldn’t squeal so much!  And by the way it has nothing to do with the kool stop shoe it’s all about the leverage from the brake calipers.  In other words if you were googling how to make your Mafac brakes not squeel and you were directed here, well sorry for the bad news but I don’t have an answer.  If you do find the answer help me out and tell me PLEASE!!!  EDIT: With some help in the comments I was able to fix the Mafac screeching problem! Thanks!