The first item to tackle was widening the hole in the brake bridge to allow the mounting of the rear brake with a recessed bolt. Jay brought along a 90-degree drill attachment, and we found that it was going to be necessary to cut down an old 5/16” bit to make it short enough that it would fit with the attachment into that tight space between the bridge and the seat post.
All went well with that operation, then I moved onto my first experience with a tap and proceeded to put a new 10mm x 1.0 thread into the derailleur hanger. I was careful to twist the tap handle slowly and keep the tap perpendicular to the hanger, backing it out slightly after each turn in order to clear the cutting edges of metal shavings.
I was aware that there may be some clearance issue between the chain, lowest freewheel cog and the metal stop that was installed in the drive-side dropout. I had discovered that the non-drive dropout adjustment bolt had been broken off in the hole, and the previous owner had installed these metal stop in place of the bolts:
The new-old-stock parts, particularly the vintage chrome Huret cable guides, made the Liberia a very classy looking machine:
Little did I know, my stint on French bicycle work was just beginning, as my friend Brendan dropped by last weekend with a few surprises. He had visited a seller who, in retrospect, new very little about what he had in his hands, and came away with a very rare Peugeot composite frameset and Mavic parts at an incredibly low price.
The PY-10FC, essentially a collaboration between Vitus and Peugeot, used aluminum lugs, much like Vitus 979 and Carbone bicycles of the time, but used Peugeot’s specially designed carbon tubes. The company definitely had the mountain climbers on the Peugeot-Shell pro team in mind when they built this frameset! I won’t bother to go deep into the history, as Peter Kohler covered all of this wonderfully in his On the Drops blog, from which I borrowed the image of a Peugeot PY-10FC advertisement below.
Brendan was fortunate to come away with a Mavic SSC headset, crankset and pedals installed on the frame, and he brought the all the rest of the Mavic components he had already been collecting for the build. I wish all of my customers made it so easy for me!
Although it was also setup with a Mavic headset and bottom bracket, Brendan’s other acquisition was definitely not French. The Pogliaghi (pronounced pohl-YAH-gee) frameset was also not something he intended to keep – I’m assuming it was another one of his great deals, and other than wanting to keep the Mavic parts, he intended to check if the Italian product was something in which I’d be interested.
There is plenty to be found on the internet about Sante Pogliaghi, who built frames for stars like Fiorenzo Magni and Eddy Merckx, so I’ll refrain from repeating. The master builder died in 2000, and frames that were built under his supervision were marked by a “PSM” and sequential number, usually on the seat lug but occasionally on the head lug.
Around 1983 the brand rights were purchased by Marc Rossin, and in 1993 the marque moved onto the Basso company. The original Pogliaghi-built frames are highly-sought-after and pricey – not that others are exactly cheap - and I have never had the opportunity to work on one. This frameset seems to be one of the later models, as it is missing the “PSM” stamp, and the pantografia is a more modern style.
Unfortunately, there is some sweat-induced bubbling to the paint under the top tube that needs some attention – someone attempted a poor patch job. I’m note sure the translucent green finish is going to be easy to duplicate, so this may be a total repaint project. This frame is going to be quite a way down the queue, so I apologize if it disappears from the blog for a while, but I have MANY finished bicycles that I’d like to move out and still have a backlog of long-term customer projects which to complete.
