Peugeot Mixte mini restoration, ish.

I bought this bike close to five years ago now. Used it to commute for a couple summers when I lived just around the corner from my work. Unknown year Peugeot Mixte. Single speed with coaster brake, as simple as can be.

Then it got a tire puncture.

I never fixed it.

And it sat. Outside. For another 2 years or so, while I moved to where a bicycle commute is not an option. Then it took up residence in my attic for a stint.

However, I am finally getting around to doing something with it! Have some parts on the way and I'm pretty excited to ride this thing again. The goal is to just clean it up and get it presentable again, along with some fresh paint and maintenance parts.

This is how I bought it:

Somewhere along the way I halfass rattle canned the frame in its current green color

And here it is, present day.

All I have really accomplished so far was cleaning up the front wheel, but this was a couple hour process.

From this:

To this:

The rear is even worse. I'm also particularly kicking myself over the fact that my MTB is currently... outside in a snowbank. Lesson learned.

Sweet! I'll be watching this! I just finished my own vintage road bike project a few months ago. What exactly are your plans for it?

I have a lot of bikes, several I consider mine, and many "transitional" which will go to friends and so on. Recently I had 3 Peugeot mixtes and two other mixtes at the same time. This led to the idea of offering them as a rental option to go with the Airbnb trailer rental idea. European/ hipster flair. But then one was sold, and another is going to an authentic French friend, so I'm moving on...

Nice work....looks like fun!

Realistically the plan is to just have something cool to cruise around on on back roads and whatnot. Plus it's giving me something to do and keeping my mind off buying more cars

A couple of the parts arrived today from eBay land. Used chrome drop bars (~20) and new LED headlamp (~10).

The headlamp even came with a comic depicting its journey for a Chinese sweat shop to me!

I also picked out the color for the frame and ordered paint. I went with Volvo Tropic Green, color code 412. It's a little lighter than I was hoping for but it should do the trick.

Now to get started on the rear wheel. My wrists are sore just looking at it.

Have you considered rebuilding the rear wheel and re-lacing it up with stainless steel spokes? They are pretty much the defacto standard these days and not expensive. Another plus is that hubs are about 100x easier to clean when disassembled from the wheel.

That would be ideal but, unfortunately, not in my budget for this little adventure.

Picked up the paint the other day. I've started doing some sanding/prep on the frame but have a long way to go.

New old rear rack/beer holder showed up:

Some time and much polishing later I've ended up with this:

You all probably already know about this, but it is a recent discovery for me and my new favorite invention. The dremel attachment that is like a high speed scotch brite pad. This almost certainly saved my wrists from permanent damage on the rear wheel.

Wheel before:

Wheel after (also hungry cat):

Snowpocalypse 2017 meant that I got to sleep at work to keep up with plowing, which gave me plenty of time to work on painting the frame!

Sanded:

Primer:

Two coats of color, three coats of clear:

Really, really happy with the color.

Looking good. Connected round tubes are deceptively difficult to paint nicely.

84FSP wrote: Looking good. Connected round tubes are deceptively difficult to paint nicely.

To put it mildly!

Speaking of learning curves, I had my first experience with handlebar tape. It's starting to look like a bike again.

Looking great - I especially like the color choice. My wife has a 1970 Raleigh Super Course Mixte that she has threatened to sell a few times but I'd rather she not. I really should clean it up.

Thanks!

It only took 17 days to get this from PA to VT.

Dropped the ball on this thread.

The last piece of the puzzle was this old head badge which came from Australia...

A new chain and it rides!

Reassembly is the opposite of disassembly. Mostly.

Unfortunately, the only pics I got of the "finished" product...

I've only gotten to ride it a handful of times - without incident, until last Friday. Rode into town to pick up lunch and, long story short, a 3/4 ton Chevy truck made a right turn in front of me without signaling and I couldn't quite avoid it. Caught the trailer hitch in my front wheel and went down in the middle of the road. I am fine other than a little road rash. Very thankful it was so minor in the grand scheme of things. Lesson learned about following distance, too. Driver said he didn't see me, even though I had been directly lined up with is passenger side mirror for a while.

Ow. Yeah, glad you're okay. And I just assume that every motorist can't see me.

Nice looking bike! Riding like every driver is out to kill you is even more important than driving that way. Glad you're okay and the damage is minor.

Thanks

I've heard variations of "ride like everyone is trying to kill you" for years, but I definitely have a better understanding of what that means now!

Got sick of tripping over a bike at work that I can't ride, so I finally brought it home today...

Looking good! A couple scratches make a bike much more rideable IMO.