French Bike Refurb and First Run

Only cycling this blog and somewhere to record me doing up an old bike.

As Debbie's old Dutch bike was broken - back stays bent but that's another story - we were keeping an eye out on holiday and she found this one in an antique shop in Lynton. Parts looked pretty good though dodgy paint job failed to cover all the rust. Tyres rotten. Afterwards I managed to repair the old Dutch and decided to do this one up for myself. It's a Peugeot Mixte frame (I think it's Peugeot) probably from the 70s or maybe early 80s.

Original condition - doesn't look too bad from this distance. Note the fattest saddle ever produced - Spanish.

Showing the rust - parts and frame. Even the cable housing is painted.

Firstly I dismantled the bike completely including all the parts that I could take apart. The headset is seized up I think because when wet the aluminium headset stem fuses to the steel frame inside in a chemical reaction. Don't quote me on that cos I failed chemistry O Level. Also couldn't get the crank cotters out, despite heavy handed bad tempered hammering, so unfortunately had to leave bottom bracket, cranks and chain ring on.

Dismantled and a morass of parts - all labelled.

Next I cunningly suspended the bike from the washing line and set about applying some horrible foul smelling gloopy green paint stripper. Yes, I did use rubber gloves, plastic goggles and disposable mask. There were two coats of paint - badly applied white (including on the parts and components) and blue underneath.

Just before stripping - you can see the blue paint and rust.

Stripped - I then got rid of the remaining blue paint with sandpaper.

Once stripped I applied three coats of primer then three coats of of Brooklands Racing Green paint. All sprayed from cans. I chose Brooklands as I'd cycled past there on a ride in Surrey and looked into the old circuit which is now an industrial estate. You can still walk, and risk riding on broken glass, around some of the banking that they used for bike racing although now overgrown.

Primed - I had to tape up the parts I couldn't remove making some areas difficult to spray.

Painted - unfortunately a bit of a breeze so a couple of leaves and a spider got caught in the wet paint. Spider rescued and scurried off. Relief.

After painting I lightly wet sandpapered then applied a couple of decals that I bought on-line. French National Champion stripes. It was the least I could do seeing as I'd painted a French bike a variant of British Racing Green. Then it was the final touch - a couple of coats of lacquer to fix the paint. Unfortunately the spray can spluttered every so often throwing out blobs of lacquer which when dried looked like the paint had blistered. I was gutted at this as it spoilt a lovely finish that I was very proud of. I guess pride does come before a fall. I doubt anyone else will notice and after a few weeks riding around London a couple of small blisters in the paintwork will be the least of my worries.

I then cleaned all the components taking apart if needed and then rebuilt the bike. Quite a lot needed sandpapering and I took the rust off as needed. Reeassembling not too hard as I'd written down the order of parts but I did have to refer to my photos for some of the components. Bought new tyres and inner tubes although wasn't that much of a choice as they are 27 x 1 1/4 wheels (that's 27 x 1 and a quarter). I wanted to get amber walled tyres as that's what the bike came with. And they look natty. I went to my local bike shop (Psubliminal in Balham) for rim tape and when explaining what I was doing and that the inside of the wheel rims were a bit rusty in places they guy said instead of rim tape use insulating tape as you can put three layers thereby covering not just the central bit where the spokes go out but also the rim inner walls. Nice bit of advice even though he lost a sale. Also treated the bike to new brake and gear cables. As the seat post was too short for me I had to buy one on eBay. That was difficult to find as it's a rare 24mm width and I couldn't get one with the modern bars to fix the saddle to. I replaced the big fat saddle with an old one of mine and whilst visiting Bruce in Leicester he donated the drop handle bars - complete with old school "safety" brake levers on the top. For "safety levers" read "suicide levers". The former is how marketeers refer to them the latter cyclists especially those who've had to stop suddenly. I quite like them as a way to glide gently to a halt if you're hands are on the top of the bars. As I'm going to use it for my commute over the next few weeks I also swapped the pedals for my Shimano SPD cleated jobbies.

The finished product. Well, I'm sure there will be further fiddling and additions.

I took it out for a spin yesterday and mostly went very well including the brakes tested whilst hurtling down towards Thornton Heath from Crystal Palace. Niggles were the gears stopped working (since resolved) and the seat post dropping an inch or so although stangely then stopping there. Nothing major.

You can see the 35 mile ride here. Basically Balham - Tower of London - Mile End - Greenwhich via foot tunnel (not cycling, of course) - Crystal Palace (meandering as got lost) - home (ditto):

http://connect.garmin.com/jsPlayer/615072379

What else to do. Not convinced I need bar tape but if I do not sure what colour as it needs to match the saddle, which I'm thinking of changing anyway as this one's a little unforgiving. To match the decals; white will get dirty and not sure if blue will complement the green. So maybe go for a red (burgundy) or possibly amber / cream to match the tyre walls (good shout Jules). Not sure I need the front rack but it gives it a certain retro look and could be useful. Rattles a bit though so may go. My panniers fit on the back rack which is very pleasing.

Overall a fun job to do and I think the result is pretty good if I say so myself. The bike cost £40 and I spent about £50 on the paint job (all materials) and about £60 on new components, so far. I estimated that I spent about 24 hours on the refurb altogether. I've stripped bikes before, down to the ball bearings, but not stripped and repainted a bike and whilst I wouldn't do it every weekend I may look for another little project in a few months. May not spray paint though and use a brush instead. My Trek hybrid is now in the shed (pedal-less) and I'll see how this runs about. May leave the Trek for longer rides with hills that need greater gearing than this one. I just hope that nothing goes wrong in the bottom bracket as that will need a serious bit of work to remove the cranks. There again it will be a challenge...