Upgrading old steel bike

simmo3801

Hi there I bought a peugeot frame and forks about 10 yrs ago in France. They're Reynolds 531 tubing. I then bought a friends hack and had the frames swapped as it had Shimano 105 kit on it. I'm interested in upgrading some of it to use as a winter hack with mudguards etc. On measuring th eaxle width between rear dropouts it is a narrower space than modern bikes which means that I can't change the wheels to upgrade to 9 or 10 speed (it's 7 sp at the moment). I'm sure i read somewhere of a process for stretching the space to the newer standard width and does anyone have any knowledge ot this? Is this cost effective or would I be better just buying a cheapish winter frame?

ride_whenever

You can easily cold set steel frames, read sheldon browns webpage.

It is much cheaper than the cheapest frame!!!

simmo3801

Cheers for that I'll have a read.

The Spiderman

I have an old early 90s steelf rame which I use as my "ride and leave at station hack".

Rear drop outs are 126mm but I use a modern 130 mm modern wheel.I just neeed to pull the drop outs out a bit when installing the wheel and it goes in fine.

Using a 7speed cassette with downtube shifters and spacer,currently but it could take an 8 or 9 speed.

I have been riding it for a year now like this with no problems.

otherself

Yeah there should be enough 'give' in 531 steel to allow a modern 130mm axle wheel without the need to cold set. It's pretty springy.

There used to be beveled axle nuts made for very stiff steels frames or early aluminium ones, around the the time 126mm rears jumped to 130mm sometime in the early 90's. Some professional teams on budgets used them because they couldn't afford new frames every season. If you've got a grinding wheel you might be able to take 1mm off each axle nut is another option.