[CR]1973: $120 for a UO-8 and $200.00 for a PX-10?

(Example: Component Manufacturers)

From: "garth libre" <rabbitman@mindspring.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 05:00:32 -0400
Subject: [CR]1973: $120 for a UO-8 and $200.00 for a PX-10?

Please don't tell me it's true. In 1972, I paid $120.00 for a Peugeot and another on this list paid less than $200.00 for a PX-10 at the tail end of 1971! My $120.00 bought me a virtually unusable piece of crap. When the Central Park junky stoled it from me, two weeks after I bought it, part of me was glad. Mafac racer brakes: ok they stopped. Heavy steel unbutted frame: heavy and not much of an improvement over my early sixties Dunelt. (Rudge like). Seat: bad bad bad. Rims: heavy steel and not an improvement over anything. Derailleurs (front and back): the worst that could possibly be made.... More horrible shifting is not possible if they were designed by a cadre of retarded preteens. Somedays it was faster to just get off the bike and help the chain on to the next cog with a stick. The plastic metal shiffters: when you used them the metal part separated and sometimes pinched your thumb skin. Now let's discuss the PX-10 for less than double the price. A totally respectable piece of machinary that brought joy to many and fueled the dreams of all us less fortunate who were caught by the ten speed bug during the 70's bike boom. What bothers me most is that other companies like Atala and even Schwinn were putting out out decent bikes for the same that a U0-8 cost. I only bought the Peugeot because it was my first 10 speed and I didn't know better. Two years later, I saw Nishikis and Gitanes and Motebecanes and of course Atalas that let people travel all over the east coast metropolis for the same $120.00 I spent cursing plastic derailleurs. An early 70's UO-8 was more a mistake than the wiretapping of the Watergate. Was any other bike as badly made and designed, for the same money? Garth