Maintaining and Updating The Peugeot Tandem Part 6 Chainsets Posted on 3 Feb 18:34 , 0 comments

Peugeot Tandems

Maintaining and Updating The Peugeot Tandem

Chainsets
Peugeot fitted either Stronglight 49D or Specialites TA Pro Vis 5 (also known as "Cyclotouriste") cross over tandem chainsets. These are now VERY sought after and sell for about £100 (GBP). The original gearing was somewhat high, so if you are going touring and plan on scaling any major hills, the chainwheels can be changed for smaller ones than the original 52/42T. The photo is of a Stronglight set. The TA is the one fitted on the tandem in the banner photo. 

Please note that later tandems were equipped with a Stronglight 90 chainset. Rings for these are no longer available so you will need to upgrade to a new chainset.

Pedals
If you want to replace the pedals with modern ones - Beware! Both types of chainset are threaded for French pedals, which are not easy to find. This is not a big problem as the French pedal thread is very close to English threading and the cranks can be easily retapped to English threads by any competent bike shop. Alternatively you can send them to me and I will do the job for a reasonable price (see Services)

What to Do
You will need a special Crank Extractor tool to remove your cranks. This a different size to the modern ones. Suitable crank extractors are made by Jim Stein in the USA. We usually have them in stock so if you need one contact us  The chainsets use a BCD (bolt circle diameter) of 50.4mm which is different to modern chainsets.

We stock replacement chain rings for the TA "Cyclotouriste" chainset  in a wide variety of sizes (26t to 52t). The good news is that they also fit the Stronglight 49D cranks but only if you replace both chain rings of the double chainset (RH rear).

The SunXCD 50.4mm crankset that we stock is a close copy of the Cyclotouriste chainset, but remember that only the rear RH crank is standard on a tandem crossover drive, as the pedal threads are different for RH and LH pedals.

Upgrading to triple chainset
This is possible with the TA Cyclotouriste and you can retain your existing inner and outer chain rings if you like but you will need to buy an additional inner chain ring PLUS a set of nuts, spacers, washers and bolts for a triple. The bolts are expensive - approx £40 GBP at time of writing. For Stronglight you will need to buy all 3 chainrings plus the triple bolt set. You will also need a longer rear BB spindle. I used 132mm which works fine but is maybe just a little too long. I have fitted 46/36/26 with an 11-32T cassette, which gives me a gearing from 22" to 113" which should be adequate :-)
We stock all the parts for a triple conversion