It used to be that when I thought of an entry level Peugeot of the
10 speed Era I would immediately think of the ubiquitous UO-8 which was made by the hundreds of thousands (Millions?). And Then I started working on the AO-8 that is my current project.
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| Courtesy of retro Peugeot from '69 French catalog |
The AO-8 is the lesser know little brother of the aforementioned UO-8. And its well err a
less expensive,
cost conscious, OK I will say it
cheaper version of its big brother. Cheaper you ask? How is it cheaper Ryan? Well let me tell you.
Cable routing, Rather than use a solid circle of metal they used little "wings" that bend to wrap around the cables. I'd never seen this before this bike.
And plastic, lots of plastic, in some interesting places. Peugeot is of course famous (infamous?) for using Derlin plastic in their front and rear derailleurs all up and down their 10 speed line, although for this bike both RD jockey wheels have lost about 25% of their roundness, so maybe the AO-8 got cheaper plastic?
For the AO-8, however, they added a few "extras". The down-tube shifters are plastic with a thin metal sheath wrapped around 3 sides, I have actually seen this on a few other entry level bikes but the higher level Peugeot's like the Course (UO-10) had metal DT shifters.
The really surprising place I found plastic was in the bottom bracket bearing cages, also something I had never seen before.
Another classic cost saver is stamped steel rear drop outs
as opposed to forged rear drops.
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| Courtesy of www.mytenspeeds.com |
The final place that is an obvious cost saver is the replacing the head-badge with a sticker, sorry
decal.
Ok I have been making fun of our French cousins with this bike but all the above said I would rather have this bike than 99.9995% of the department store bikes of today. Hope to have this baby all back together soon so you can judge for yourself.
Happy Holidays to you and yours from Ryan's Rebuilds.
As always - Ride.Smile.Repeat.
