Almost there....

I did most of the reassembly today.  I noticed only one of the rear brake arms had a thin copper washer, the other one is missing.  The brakes are set up with cantilevered arms, they seem much more effective than most bikes of that era.  The wheel rims are steel, but the sides are textured to increase friction with the brake pads. I'm thinking I might drop a drop or two of paint on some of the threads on bolts, to prevent them rattling loose.

I'm happy with the appearance of the bike, the chrome parts have a bit of rust.  The black killrust paint on the racks was still sticky 48 hours after painting, picked up a few bits of grass when I was working on it on the lawn, I also left a black finger print or two on the blue frame.

Today, steel rims are seen as cheap and nasty, but good quality steel rims are good, the main drawbacks being their vulnerability to rust and reduced braking ability in wet weather.  The Peugeot seems good quality to me, maybe I should weigh a wheel some time.  The whole bike is no real light weight, it might be 13kg, I did weigh it once, I'll get back with a more accurate figure.

I see Michelin are still making 550A tyres, these ones called Diablo:

 The tread pattern on mine is different.  The walls are like the one in the middle.  I can't find my SD card reader to upload photos from my camera, it can't be far away.

I decided to do away with the original lights.  The rear one was broken, the front one is scratched and corroded.  I might do something with the dynamo.

The blue NS22 on ebay is up to $80 with three days remaining.

I have already mentioned warm weather in December and a Eucalyptus tree, you might guess I am in Australia.  The NS22 I refer to is on australian ebay, I see one very similar in the US is $599, starting bid with no bidders, 2.5 days to go.   But I see the bike is actually located in the Netherlands, just selling on US ebay.  It seems not many of these made it to the US.  Sheldon Brown makes no mention of them on his site.  No others are on US ebay today.  Today one australian dollar is 99 US cents.

****

"Ten years have passed you by, no-one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun"

But, on the other hand:

"Riding on the biggest wave you race toward an early grave...."

Where did I go wrong?  Enrolling in a science degree was a definite mistake, certainly majoring in the eccentric gentleman's hobby that I undertook was an even bigger error.  My longest continuous employment has been 18 months, unrelated to my university studies.

A while ago I saw a documentary about Donald Crowhurst, a man who suffered from delusions of grandeur and painted himself into a corner then took his own life as the only solution he could see to escape his predicament.

Another good documentary was about frenchman Phillipe Petit, who in 1974 walked a tightrope between the now fallen World Trade Center towers in New York.