Puch Marauder fixed conversion

Heres some pictures of my first attempt at a fixed conversion. The bike was given to me by someone I was working for, it was just sat in his garage not being used. Its a lugless steel frame, not anything of notable quality but really neat clean joints.

Ive kept the origional headset, bars, forks and SR stem. I had the frame stripped, blasted and powdercoated in gloss white. Seen as the only piece of original equipment of any quality was the SR stem I gathered together some more SR parts (suntour seatpost and pedals and silstar crankset) to finish it off, all polished up with wire wool then autosol. Kept the original wienmann front brake, added a new Selle turbo saddle and fizik honey brown bar tape.

Think it looks pretty good, only had a quick pedal the other night down the road, just had a operation so got to wait 6 weeks till I can ride it again.

Found it very difficult to find any detailed info on the Puch bikes, but I do know that they seem to be a mass produced type of bicycle.

Anyway, heres the photo's. Let me know what you think!

















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love the suede saddle

Thanks, the shade doesnt quite match the bar tape, but im happy with it.

Looks nice mate,

biggs682":3kjjn0d3 said:

love the suede saddle

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It's worth noting that you can still buy these new, not that I'm saying it's not retro

I'm not always keen on fixies, but there's something about this that I really like. Maybe it's because it's not trying to be really flashy with expensive Italian track parts, it looks nice, is in lovely condition and is practical (OK, maybe not the brake lever ...).

I particularly like the chainset, despite it not being a premium make. Chain guards on the chainset are bloody useful in my view, and it's very rare to see one as integrated as that, as they're often bolt on affairs. It looks a lot nicer than the track chainsets you see a lot of people fit on their fixie bikes.

And I love the rake of the fork blades and the dropouts - it looks really cheeky and slack ! if that makes sense in bike terms !

Yeah, most Puch bikes were mass produced. They were, or still are a big moped manufacturer in Italy and also made cycle frames (I'm not sure which came first). I'm not sure if Puch ever had a great era, i.e. if Pros used them in Grand Tours, and they then took advantage of their name simply to sell 'cheap' bikes.

You could try and get a Puch headbadge - it's a nice green and white chequered oval if I remember rightly. It'll be worth it in your case as you've had a real pro paint job done.

Anyway, enough blethering...I'm off to watch the Giro on Rai Sport...

Silstar. I wonder if that's the same one as the fishing reels?

Iwasgoodonce":22joc4ys said:

Silstar. I wonder if that's the same one as the fishing reels?

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Well Shimano do both, so why not !

Thanks for the positive comments 1988_Ben,

Thats what I was going for, I didnt want to dress it up into something it wasnt supposed to be, and the fact that it had no braze ons and horizontal drop outs it was just perfect.

The chainset was of e bay, seen as im only going to be rideing it to the shop/pub etc in the summer I didnt want to be catching any clothing in the chain on a fixed gear! Even though they are badged as Silstar on the cranks, the inside of the crank arms have the same SR logo as the stem, seatpost, and pedals, so they must of been from the same factory or owned by SR. I would imagine that they did make fishing reals also, and rods.

The bike didnt have the green chequered badge you mention but a black headbage with PUCH and a sort of gold wreath around it, also on the seat tube it had a sticker with "austro-daimler GB" written on it.

From what ive found out the bikes where made in austria, but they did/do make mopeds, and obviously had a connection with daimler cars. I would be interested to know what type of steel its made from, and the construction method used, as the frame joints are incredibly neat, you cant see any signs of a weld.

Also the high end puch bikes ive seen across the net, share the same dropouts and forks as the bike I have.

Anyway, thanks again.

I don't think you'll find much interesting information about the tubing - my guess is that it's not an exotic racing tubeset, just a basic chrome-molybdenum steel alloy. I'd be interested to know how they made those joints too, they are really neat. My guess is that it's a manufacturing technique that most framebuilders don't have available - maybe Puch's industrial links allowed them to build them this way. I think it's TIG welded but somehow the weld bead is very thin and concealed. It could even be in internal lug fitting that has been brazed. Either way, it does look nicer than standard lugs or TIG welding, however, it's not the method that the majority of top steel framebuilders went with, so it's difficult to say how effective it is. But it looks nicer, so that's probably all that matters !

looks great in the new livery - good work

AustroDaimler was the brand Puch used for the US and UK as it was, in their understanding, the more known brand then Puch in the 50s (AustroDaimler made cars in between the WW)

Puch did, besides Mopeds, small cars and Military vehicles (Haflinger, Pinzgauer) and some other special projects - mainly 4x4 - for other major companies (Mercedes/Puch G and the original Fiat Panda 4x4) a wide range of bikes, incl. bikes for their own Pro's team.

The tubes they used for their bikes came from Columbus and Reynolds (531,..) for the higher range, lower ranged bikes used cheaper noname tubesets.

Have fun with your Puch