Charles, Maybe these fork blades were made of tubing, except it was seamed instead of seamless?
Talk of bent fork blades reminds me of an interesting wreck I had on my old UO-8. I was riding with some friends on the highway outside of town, and carrying a leather bota over my shoulder. Someone wanted a drink (no, it wasn't wine, honest) so I was holding the bota by the strap and looking back over my shoulder, getting ready to hand it off. The next thing I knew, bike and all cartwheeled head over heels.
The bota had gotten sucked into the front wheel, jamming between spokes and fork and immediately stopping the front wheel. The rest of the bike and its occupant continued forward in the only manner possible. Somehow I managed to escape with hardly a scratch despite not wearing helmet or gloves. It probably helped that I wasn't moving too fast or wearing cleats. The fork blades were bent slightly to one side, making it impossible to ride hands-free until I had the LBS straighten them, which they did fairly well. Much later I discovered the lower headset race had been damaged too. Once I replaced this the bike handled almost as good as new.
The bota survived okay, which is more than I would expect from one of your modern, off-topic botas.
John Hurley Austin, Texas, USA
-----Original Message----- From: verktyg [mailto:verktyg@aol.com] Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 1:41 AM To: John Hurley; Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org; verktyg@aol.com Subject: Re: [CR] PXN10E?? on SD Craig's list
There was a period in the early to mid 70s when Peugeot used some fork blades on their less expensive models that weren't made from tubing. They were made of formed sheet metal with a brazed seam down the back of the blades. I found this out when I tried to straighten a slightly bent fork on a customer's UO-8 back in the day. Both blades split like a banana peel right at the bends as soon as I applied some force using one of the old bumper jack frame straightening tools. I saw a number of PR-10 Peugeots from that era with seamed fork blades too. They had a lot less rake than the UO-8 forks. How many centimes did Peugeot save by not using tube for their fork blades?
Chas. Colerich
Oakland, CA USA