I'm glad a few others share my favorable opinion of the UO-8. The frames, considering the price, were usually in good alignment with fairly clean lugwork and pretty good paint and decals. The white and black with Peugeot checkers and the little tire man Bib on the original Michelin tires seemed really French and really cool to American kids like me who knew almost nothing of European bicycle racing. With a change of derailleurs and saddle, you could do anything short of actual racing on a UO-8. I have no doubt more than one UO-8 has successfully completed a transcontinental tour. The essential thing for me is that the experience with the UO-8 as my first ten speed was sufficiently positive to make me want keep me riding bikes for 30 years now.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
stephen a. solombrino wrote:
> Joe, my experiences were the same. Ten minute assembly because the factory
> did all the hard work and they were OK right out of the box. Some of the
> other stuff was a mess including certain Raleighs. Steve
>
> >From: Joseph Bender-Zanoni <jfbender@umich.edu>
> >To: Jerry & Liz Moos <moos@penn.com>, garth libre
> ><rabbitman@mindspring.com>
> >CC: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> >Subject: Re: [CR]1973: $120 for a UO-8 and $200.00 for a PX-10?
> >Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 13:36:22 -0700
> >
> >I put together many a U08 and A0-8. While these bikes have little nostalgic
> >appeal to me, Peugeot had one thing going for it and that was a sense of
> >quality control. I am not saying that the bikes were great, but they were
> >consistently good, which was a pleasent surprise in the bike boom days. At
> >that time almost every sub $150 dollar bike was a lottery for the
> >conscientious mechanic when you opened the box. For example, the Italian
> >bike favorite was the chainline from hell, 25% of the Motobecanes had forks
> >bent in shipping (or otherwise), Raleighs had component changes from the
> >catalog or forgot to braze a joint every now and then, Schwinns required
> >assembling and taping the bars and the wheels were often atrociously built
> >(or better put, merely laced).
> >
> >By contrast Peugeots were highly assembled out of the box. They were also
> >shrink wrapped. Many of the adjustments were pretty close and I suspect
> >some dealers passed them on to customers with no more than 10 minutes of
> >assembly time. I don't remember too many frame defects either, although I
> >was pretty young and hadn't developed as critical an eye at that time.
> >Anyway, I thought I'd pass on this hidden virtue of the Peugeots when new.
> >
> >Joe