Mystery bike frame - Peugeot or not?

I've recently received this freebie frame from CanAmSteve (cheers Steve!) and I'm intrigued as to what it is.



It's stickered up as a Peugeot with 531cs sticker on the frame and 501 stickers on the fork....yet in all the searching I've done so far I cannot find reference online to a black Peugeot road/touring frame in 531cs.




There is a 6 digit serial number on the underside of the bb shell which doesn't seem to fit Peugeot's numbering system.....and I'm struggling to find Peugeot's of that era with the lugs that this frame has.



The black paint doesn't seem great quality (yeah ok - it's properly knocked about) and it looks like there is white paint under the black.....would they use a white undercoat under black or has it been resprayed.

The other feature which seems quite unique is a boss on the downtube to accept a single point fixing shifter pod - apparently a mid 80's thing which didn't really catch on.



Can anyone offer any advice on what this frame may be based on the pics?




Anyone have any thoughts/comments/suggestions?

Cheers!

I've seen a few English frames in Club Sport but can't recall a Peugeot in CS.

Midlife":218yyfnc said:

I've seen a few English frames in Club Sport but can't recall a Peugeot in CS.

Click to expand...

There was a British Eagle from the 80's (Randonnee?) which was gloss black which was in 531cs.....about the closest match I can find so far......but no close up detail pics that I can find yet.

Re:

Hi, Peugeot always applied the Reynolds decals to the down tube above the lever bosses and not the seat tube and up until the late 80`s they were french text .Peugeot 531 frames with horizontal dropouts were always simplex . If it is a Peugeot then it is pre 80`s but the Peugeot rainbow decals are 1984 on so in any case the frame and the decals are not matched indicating a respray and new decals rather than a catalogue model.

Re:

Holdsworth and British Eagle are the only mass builders I know of who used the CS tubeset. Holdsworth made the triath-elan in white and CS tube but I don't remember mine having cut out lugs and it definitely had down tube lever bosses. As already stated, paint decals and age seem to be a mish-mash so we can't assume it is CS or even 531. Seat post size and dropout stamping might help.

Don't know if it will help, but while surfing I noticed loads of Jap frames seemed to go for the aero single
bolt shifters. Miyata or Fuji may be worth looking into.

EDIT: There was a Raleigh Road ace that used those type of shifters for a while. It was a white / silver affair.

My Holdsworth Triath-elan 531cs gets a bit of a discussion here.

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=388014&hilit=531cs

Doesnt look like yours but it was a short lived frameset and not many companies seem to have used it. When i researched 531cs i came across Holdsworths, British eagles and Treks. Trek seem to suggest the frame set was invented for them. There is a good database on a vintage trek site with frame numbers.

Interesting replies, cheers guys.

I think the 531cs is probably leading me down the wrong path - if the frame has been painted/re-decalled as a Peugeot then the likelyhood is that the tubing decals are not original. It's also quite a heavy frame......although it is large.

I've been concentrating on the frame features......the aero shifter boss being quite unique and seemingly rare......as mentioned I'd also found that a lot of the Japanese frame used them....and it dates the frame to the mid-eighties as these shifters were not used for long. I'm assuming this boss should be threaded though - it obviously wasn't used as intended on this frame.



The concave scallop at the top of the seatstays doesn't seem particularly common either - I've found it on a few frames.....mainly British Eagle



These are the closest frames I've found to it....a Miyatas from 1984/85



It's not this though - my lugs have the heart cutout in them, the Miyata fork crown is stamped with Miyata and the seatclamp is wrong.......but it's the closest so far.

My dropouts are not stamped with any branding either.

Two points.

Another look at the serial number. The first 2 numbers '85' could be the year of manufacture. This date could match the 531cs frameset but you probably have thought of that. And secondly, a firm that used heart shaped lugs were Technotrat, an Italian contract frame builder. Try googling 'technotrat heart shaped lugs' and a good few images come up. As a contract builder they used both British and Italian BBs depending on the order.

Isn't the down tube braze on just to stop the shifters sliding down?



http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VH-kvCjEiR4/U ... ifters.jpg