Jon- Sorry to hear of your loss. Perhaps a local shop will spot the bike and recover it (as I did to a friends bike a long time ago).
You can make a drop hole fairly easily. Two strips of steel with a couple of holes in each and a piece of tubing is all it takes. Run a bolt through one of the holes on each of the strips, sandwiching the frame's brake hole. Place the piece of tube between the still exposed holes that are now just below the brake bridge and place the brake center bolt through this and presto chango you have the brake mounted lower then before.
I did this for a few bikes when mounting Campy side pulls when the bike had longer reach centerpulls originally.
> Listers,
>
> One of the biggest issues with our Peugeot UO-18s was that Mafac Racers no
> longer reached the braking surfaces of the 700C alloy (OT Mavic Open Pro)
> rims that replaced the mixte's original steel 27" Rigida
> "death-in-the-wet" rims. It took me a long time to find two sets of used
> Weinmann 750 centerpulls, and I still have the original Racers in the
> garage. And since (in all likelihood) I will be going through this process
> again with another "perfect-fit"
> UO-18 Mixte, I'd just as soon use up the inventory I have this next time
> around. But I still need another 5-8 MM of brake reach out of those
> Racers.
>
> Have any of you ever heard of, thought about, designed, made, seen,
> purchased, or used a drop bolt (similar in concept to the ones used for
> Campi and Suntour Superbe brakes) for Mafac centerpulls?
>
> My initial pondering (while waiting in the lobby to report my bike's theft
> to the Alameda Police Department) lead me to believe that such an item
> would actually work and might not cost too much. And a UO-18 mixte only
> needs a few silly millimeters of drop (5-8?) to make this concept work.
>
> Thanks for your responses.
>
> Jon Spangler
> Alameda, CA USA where we're still minus one hard-fought and well-executed
> "classique"
>
> Writer/editor
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> _______________________________________________
Andrew R Stewart
Rochester, NY