>>1933917>How good are old peugeot road bikes? There are quite a few for sale around me..the vast majority of them are heavy gaspipe steel shitters. Telling those apart is the same as with any other, look for steel rims, stem shifters, cottered cranks, claw derailer hangers and suicide brake levers. These are red flags.
they also tend to have cool paint and nice designs which trick you
the larger problem is most of them, especially the older ones, have bullshit french standards. If it has a simplex derailer it often has a simplex derailer hanger, meaning you cannot install any other type of derailer without re-tapping it and filing a stop. This is quite intensive work. The simplex and other french parts are usually shit. They pioneered the early 'high tech' use of delrin plastiques which are all snapped or on the verge of snapping so it's not just a compatibility headache if you wanted to customize it but it's likely broken and you can't fix it. Many have french or swiss bottom brackets. The helicomatic rear hubs are absolute garbage and next to impossible to service.
-however- Peugeot also made many pro and club level bikes, and their name also adorns many later models which adopt modern standards and do not have the compatibility bullshit.
It can also be worth buying a peugeot shitter purely if you like the paint enough. Many shit old bikes are still quite fun.
It's really the same as with any bike that a -high end- one is worth buying, and you can tell by the type of steel tubing used, pic rel for example has a reynolds 531 sticker and is obviously a nice bike, and by the level of componentry that is specced.
