Jean-Pierre - Peugeot Aubisque (1987-1989)

Le Tour de France is in full swing and we could write about it. For example: Which team are we rooting for? Well, since Jussi Veikkanen isn't riding le tour we're not that much into FDJ right now, even though we do feel for Thibaut Pinot. Can you believe how much bad luck he has had this far? Still, our favourite team in this year's tour is Movistar. Their team suits look really good, they ride Campagnolo groupsets and they have both Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde on the team. What's not to like? Seriously, though, we think that it would be nice if Nairo Quintana would win. Currently he's in 17th place, but we expect him to show his full potential as soon as the tour hits the hills.

And we do watch the race on TV, every now and then. But there are other web pages that are both more focused on and know more about the tour, so we leave commenting on the tour to them. Probably, at least!

Instead, this post will be about Jean-Pierre. Remember this bike?

Actually, you shouldn't. I found this bike standing abandoned behind a garage row in Kalmar. At first I just noticed it because it is the exact same model as the one I found standing in a backyard here in Gothenburg. Then I noticed that it was in pretty bad condition - it missed the back wheel, the saddle and the saddle post and... Well, just look at it. And then I noticed that it was unlocked. So I took it home to my mum's, reported it to the lost property office of the police, it stood in my mum's cellar for three months... Actually it stood there for more than six months, since I only took it with me to Gothenburg this Sunday. Now I have papers from the police saying that it's mine.

If I'm going to save one Peugeot Aubisque from just becoming scrap metal I might as well save two, right? (I'm doing it anyway.) What's funny is that not only are these two bicycles the exact same model, they're also the exact same size! That means that they are too big for me, and for anyone I know that could use a bike, so I will try to find new homes for them. That is, I will sell them. Not to make a profit, mind you - just to get the money that I will have spent on them back. The other bike, which from now on will be named Jean-Luc, will need new parts for about € 71 (+ shipping). And this bike - Jean-Pierre (they're twins, right?) - will need a new backwheel, new wires and new brake pads. Fortunately I have an old Sachs-Maillard Helicomatic rear wheel hub, saddle post (fortunately since they're a really unusual size) and saddle lying around home. (Hoarder? Who? Me?!) so at least I will be able to keep costs down. But the first thing that I need to do is to give it a thorough cleaning!

Look at the pictures (and the bicycle mistreatment):

 (Standard pedals? Yeah, you should be able to do what you won't as long as you're not hurting anyone else, but come on! You're hurting this bike's looks!)

 (This might actually be the dirtiest rear derailleur that I have ever come across!)

 (The front derailleur is quite dirty as well, but most notably it is too low. Did it even work like this?)

(Dirty and rusty.)

There will be more pictures, and hopefully more progress following, in time. In the meantime: Enjoy the tour and ride safe!

Julie - Peugeot Mont-Blanc (1988)

I have decided to sell my Peugeot Mont-Blanc, from 1988. I bought the bike about five years ago, in 2010. I was curious about road biking, I wondered if it was something for me. And I thought that the best, cheapest way to do that was to buy an old road bike. Then, if I thought that riding road bikes was not really for me, I'd sell the bike. And if I thought that riding road bikes was awesome, I'd sell the bike and buy a new one. I wanted a Peugeot, because when I was younger a guy who I used to see riding a road bike looking kind of cool had (and probably still has) a Peugeot.

So I found a Peugeot Mont-Blanc, from 1988. When I bought the bike it was... crap. I mean, really. The paintwork was chipped, the wires were a mess, the wheels unusable with spokes broken and bent, and the smell when I pulled off the old, once white, bar tape... Eeew! But it was mine for 500 Swedish krona - about € 50 - and I was happy anyway, because it was a Peugeot and it was lavender purple. When I had changed the wires, bought new wheels (I had them custom made with the old hubs), a new saddle and bright yellow bar tape I thought it looked really good too. I named her Julie.

And it was fun to ride! An old steel bike, but it was fast and just plain fun. Changing gears on the frame took some getting used to, but I learned the trick. As you can guess, I decided that road biking was indeed something for me. And I have bought a new bike. So Julie is going to find a new owner. Best of luck to her!

Ride safe!

(As yet) unnamed Mustang, part 1

I haven't given her a name yet, but I might. (If you have any tips, write to me!) This probably is, or will be, my latest project. I found this old 10-speed Mustang bicycle standing abandoned by a train station. It's in a pretty bad state but that's actually how I want it. Unlike the vintage Peugeot Aubisque I found I plan to use this bike myself, as a winter commuter bike. You know, hardcore, gritty slush and cold... So you see, I won't have her sandblasted, painted and lacquered. The only thing I am going to do is clean her and replace all the broken or missing parts. I might use the luggage carrier and I will add mudgards. A winter commuter bike, with focus on "commuter". And "winter". And "bike"...

I haven't done anything, except pick her up from the lost property office, where she has been standing for three months. (Handed in to the police and reported as "found" in december last year, and now, three months later I have paperwork that says that the bike is mine.) So if this bike turns out to be in a really bad shape I'll just recycle it. But I will give her a chance.

That's all I have to say about it right now. I must confess that I don't know much about it. Mustang was an old Swedish bicycle brand, started in 1947 by the Trelleborgs Velocipedfabrik bicycle factory, but the bicycles themselves were made in Japan after production was discontinued in Sweden, in 1994. This bicycle of mine is made in Japan and... probably not that good. But again: that's actually how I want it.

So: Pictures! (And revelling in bicycle mistreatment...)

Ride safe!

Marisol, part 5 (Suck my chrome!)

The result:

How did I attach the metal emblem? I found three small screws that had the right diameter inside a detachable bicycle light and then spent an evening filing them to the right length. It was tedious work but in the end it was worth it.

The guys at Guson Industrier (or actually some smiths, or at least guys who "work with metal" that the guys at Guson Industrier know - I never did find out what they work with) also did a fantastic job with welding, repairing the seat stays. I really mean a fantastic job. It's as if that welded lock never was there.

So. Marisol. The final result. Although now I am thinking about replacing the saddle and the chain...

Marisol, part 4

Marisol was (almost) finished. The next day the sun was shining and when the sun shines I usually ride my racer, which doesn't have mudguards, has twelve gears instead of three, is lighter and is faster, but I chose Marisol instead. All went well. We were fast together. We were beautiful together.

The problem began the next day. It was raining. No worries, I thought, since Marisol has mudguards. I rode to and back from school. When I got home, however, I noticed that there were scrapings and a little rust on the top tube. "Odd" I thought, but took her up to the flat, sanded the rust off and sprayed a couple of layers of lacquer over to protect it. A couple of days passed, it continued to rain and I continued using Marisol. Then I noticed that there were small spots of rust not only on the top tube, but also on the down tube, the seat stays, the head tube... the only part that still seemed rust free was the fork. And here is my conclusion:

Don't ever use lacquer from Biltema. It's completely crap.

So I began all over, taking the bike apart completely again...

Then I took her to the guys at Guson Industrier, that sandblasted, painted and lacquered (with good, working lacquer) the frame.

(A couple of shots (without and with flashlight) I took of the frame and fork after the guys at Guson Industrier had sandblasted the parts. Harsh! And you can clearly see the gash in the seat stay.)

I asked them if it was possible to keep the raw steel and just lacquer that, but they said that it wouldn't look good, the lacquer gets a little bit yellow after some time and it would just look dull. So I went for chrome...

Marisol, part 3

This was the final (though not final final) result of  my renovation of the bike. Raw polished steel, with four layers of lacquer to protect it. Note the black plastic tape covering the gash in the seat stay. Looking back it was a completely retarded idea to use a bike with a gash in the seat stay but as I wrote before I was saved later. There is also some black plastic tape in front where the logo was to be mounted, but at the time I had no idea how to fasten it the metal emblem. I was looking everywhere for a pair of small screws - about 1 1/2 mm thick and no more than 6 mm long - but couldn't find any, neither at an optician nor at a watchmaker. So in the meantime she looked like this. Yeah, perhaps the biggest change was that I started thinking of the bike as a "her" and named her Marisol. The brand of the bike is Maraton, a bike of course is a she and since Maraton has three syllables Marisol is the logical choice. Besides, I like Marisol.

Marisol, part 2

There is something special about raw steel! This is what she looked like when I was done. All the paint was scraped and sanded off, except for a little here and there, in corners and difficult to get to places. But I thought that that somehow only added to the purity of the steel - it's a bit difficult to explain. I also sawed off the welded lock, which saved about three hectogrammes.

Unfortunately I didn't just manage to get the welded lock off, but also to saw a gash into one of the seat stays. At the time I thought that it might still work, but fortunately I was saved, later on.

I decided to thoroughly clean the wheels as well. You can just barely read that they were made in West Germany. Yeah, they're that old.

Marisol, part 1

It was a long time ago but if I remember correctly I got this bike way back from Mum and Dad. I used it for years, but one night I was going home on my bike in the middle of the night, profoundly drunk, and I rode it straight into a parked car. I wasn't hurt and the bike worked (the car probably got a bump, though) so I rode home. The next day I thought that the bike was unusually unstable - I had always been able to ride it quite long, no hands on the handlebar, but when I tried to do that now the bike began to sway. I couldn't understand why until I explained what had happened to a friend of mine. He took one look at the bike, began to laugh and said "Well, look at the fork!" The fork was completely bent backward from the crash the night before.

At this time I had seen some cool films and clips with mountain bikes and I had wanted one for some time, so I decided to get one now. That mountain bike got stolen a couple of years later, as did the next one, but this bicycle had been used a while by my friend and then been standing in my friend's mother's shed for some years, collecting dust. Since he worked in a bike shop he had gotten a new fork for it. When my second mountain bike got stolen I couldn't afford to get a new one, so I asked my friend if I could get it back.

When I got it back I cleaned off all the dust, decided that the bike looked boring and decided to paint it. All white. Since I was still kind of new to bikes, I just took off the saddle and the wheels. It wasn't only the bike itself that was painted white but also the crankset, the pedals and the chain. I thought that it looked cool... for about a year or so, but by then I had moved to Gothenburg, Sweden, and mistreatment, endless rain and salt water began to take its toll on it, and about a year ago it just looked sad.

I decided to take the bicycle apart completely and renovate it, this time right. And that's where we start.

(And yes, I wish that I had taken some photos of the bike before I renovated it but unfortunately I didn't.)

In this picture at least you get an idea of what the bike looked like before. White-rust coloured-grey-brown-ish. The white paint was severly chipped as well. The colour was scraped off with a spatula and sandpaper.

After a while I had gotten almost all the colour off. There is something special about raw steel...

Look at the massacred ball bearing, to the left above the crankset. A bike repair guy said he had fixed that. Yeah, right...

A close up. It took about a day's work to get all the parts off, and about a week to get all the paint off.