You're collectively right on, CR members, the PX-10 was a my first taste of the high life in affordable garb as it was for so many other: the population of Peugeots amongst all bikes sounds like it rivals India or China. Mine, purchased in 1969 from the small change Stockton substitute teachers garnered over months of teeth gnashing interaction with today's voters, was the nervous prize that I had been eyeing for months at Sugden and Lynch. Gone was my Raleigh Gran Sport, used, that had seen more than its share of tumbles, mud, and choppy South Stockton streets. When I first assembled the bike and headed for the Bay Area via Deer Creek Road connecting Brentwood and Concord and thence to Berkeley, I couldn't believe how my hands felt. This bike was responsive to the touch and absolutely controllable on the gravelled route in the hinterlands. It all made you dream. Above all, this bike helped you grow up; you took chances and lived. It was also under $200 and a good $50 less than the Raleigh Pro. One New Year's Eve, I made the mistake of joining some local Bohemians (read artists, but Stockton's art colony was more renowned for suffering than recognition) and was ambushed by my love of Ripple. Then there was the ride home from a colorful backwash named Boggs Tract, where kids raced the tomato trucks en route to the cannery, that led through the largest skid row for metropolitan districts this size in the country, and culminated in a mini-climb over the sole urban overpass in town. The place was teeming with drunks and even worse drivers with and without lights. As a dreamer with TDF tattooed on the other side of reality, I managed this gauntlet deftly without lights and without recollection. I owe it all to my first real pet, a Peugeot PX-10 sans leash and microchip.
Harrison Lee
Stockton, CA