This is my daily ride-everywhere bike, a 72 Peugeot PE-41 3-speed. Since my daily work commute is a 10 mile trip, I decided I wanted to test those three speeds out with a longer overnight journey.

The details:
- 700 Rigida "Chromolux" steel wheels with nice side engraving
- 700x28mm Panaracer Pasela Touring tires
- Brooks B-17 saddle in Honey (upgrade)
- Specialized stem (upgrade)
- Nitto Albatross bar
- Cork handgrips
- Torpedo (SACHS) Dreigang shifter & 3-speed internal hub w/ coaster brake
- Altenburger sidepull front brakes
- custom self-design front porteur rack (thanks to Bruce Levinson)
- Huret hand-twist chrome wing nuts (front)
- Atom 700 (French-thread) pedals
- Vintage Christophe toe clips (thanks Kevin Kruger)
- Vintage Pletscher rear rack

This bike does it all for me and I really enjoy the comfortable geometry. I ride it daily to work, take it on errands, ride it to gigs with a classic trailer in tow (I have a jazz quartet) and have taken it on an overnight bike/camping trip. I just did a 100km ride with all roadies in the group. The terrain out here is relatively flat with rolling hills but I needed more than three speeds. I kept up but it was a serious workout on my two pistons! Plus I brought along food, tools and too many "extras" that it made it difficult to maintain a 17-19 mph pace. Now that I'm used to the gears though, I enjoy taking this bike everywhere and plan on doing more overnight trips.

Ken Matthews
Falls Church, VA

ken_matthews AT cox dot net