Recently I was dropping my girlfriend off at work in downtown Portland when I spotted something under an underpass. I circled around after dropping her off and parked to check it out. There was a shopping cart with a couple of bike frames and tires, seemingly abandoned. I looked around the area, spent a few minutes checking out what was in the cart, and no one seemed to have any interest in the bikes.

I am always looking for things like this. A cache of goods might have a treasure in it if you’re looking for the right thing. What caught my eye in this cart was a white Peugeot road bike frame. I spent a few minutes looking it over, and it was in rough shape. 

Remembering that most older Peugeot frames are pretty heavy, cheap steel I almost got back in my car and left. I didn’t need another low priority, low value project. But as I was leaving a sticker on the chrome fork caught my eye. It said “Reynolds 501”. The fork, at least, was worth the trouble.

I pulled the frame out of the cart and tossed it in the back of my car. There were three road wheels as well. One had been ridden on the bare rim for a while and was ruined, the other two looked in decent enough condition so I grabbed them too.

Once I was home the search began for any identifying features components. I noticed pretty quickly that there was a sticker missing from the top of the seat tube, a missing Reynolds sticker most likely. The frame lugs were also pretty characteristic, painted black to contrast the white frame and curves that were pretty characteristic.

I checked the brakes and derailleurs next. The front brake was missing, the rear is a Mavic center-pull center-mount brake. The derailleurs were a brand I’d never heard of before, “Simplex”. This would prove to be the biggest hint at the model of the bike.

After some time spent Googling vintage Peugeots with Simplex components I came up with some exciting info. At first I thought that I had found a PX10, one of only a handful of high-end collectible Peugeot models from this era.

Some more searching now has me thinking that it is actually the little brother of the PX10, the PR10. The non-chromed rear triangles are the big clue to the distinction, but with so many missing parts, it will be hard to pin down exactly what this bike is.

What I can say with a high level of confidence is that this is PR10 from ’73-’74. The main triangle of the bike is likely 531, with unnamed chromoly steel for the rear triangles. The fork is likely aftermarket and is chromed Reynolds 501.

Of the tires I brought back, I actually ended up with  27″ rear and a 700c front. The 700c will work as a front tire as I build up the frame. The 27″ tire could be used as a spare for either my girlfriend or my bikes, but more likely I’ll be looking to do something more artistic with it. After all, I’d really rather switch all the bikes to 700c anyways.

This is definitely a background project as it could end up costing a decent amount of money to get it up and running and I already have a well tuned 12 speed. Hopefully there will be an update before too long.