Do racers "feel" different?

[MarcusT]

I would like to see a pic of your bike. It brings back a lot of memories. In the early 80's while I was researching every bike maker I could find. (no internet back then). Peugeot was one of my dream bikes. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the specs for the prestige, but I used to know it by heart.
I believe they came with Simplex gears and they had a criterium geometry, which might explain the "twitchy" feeling.

While I was in Berlin, De. I saw a large number of 80's racing bikes, I had goose bumps from the flashbacks.

[Chat Noir]

Peugeot made several bikes with the label Prestige during this period including different names or models for different countries. Serial number dating was generally reliable then. Under the bottom bracket there will be a serial number, often preceded by a letter. The first number indicated the year of build, ranging from the 1980s into the 1990s. So, for example, I recently picked up an old Peugeot frame with the serial number Y2C54775. This was built in 1992, supported by information contained in brochures on line (an unusual Reynolds tubeset). This link should take you to a good range, including UK, French, German, etc.

http://bikeboompeugeot.com/

If you have a serial number that does not follow the usual factory numbering system then you are likely to have a more specialist frame, perhaps built for a team, in which case you can get excited! Any photos will help identify the exact model you have.

Good luck.

[Debs]

The only Peugeot bike i was allowed a little go on, was 25+ years ago on a friends 1980s built of 753 Reynolds. It was one size too big for me but i remembering it feeling very light and a joy to ride, no handling problems riding but gave me a shock with braking-
front brake lever on the left horror!

[Gattonero]

Road bikes have geometry designed for racing and that does make them twitchy. ...

That is a wrong statement.
A road bike that is correctly setup for the rider, is not twitchy. Will corner fast, but still will go perfectly straight and won't "fall-in" when trying to steer, nor will be all over the place when negotiating with road bumps and the likes.

I've ridden some pretty cheap bikes, and most of those were not the right size and setup for me. Strange enough, they feel like being all over the place in comparison to my own bikes, the latter are correctly setup with the same measurements that I know from decades and now I barely measure once.

Speaking of Peugeot, I had a "racer" that was fillet-brazed (those ones with very small "industrial-made" brazing) and never felt it being twitchy.

[drossall]

It depends on your definition of twitchy. I still recall, forty years ago, my first ride on a quality racing bike. It was definitely "nervous". For that matter, I think the first dropped-bar bike I rode felt the same.

Now, I'll switch from a tourer to a road bike or whatever, and not notice anything "amiss"in the steering. But that's not because there's no difference; it's because I've adapted. For that matter, I can switch to a trike now and not notice anything "amiss" either; that definitely has different handling!

If there were no difference, the magazine reviews that talk about handling would not make a lot of sense. Actually, I'm not sure how real the differences that the reviewers report actually are. Nonethless, on the scale of road bike vs tourer, I'd expect someone riding either for the first time to notice that it was different from the other.

[foxyrider]

It depends on your definition of twitchy. I still recall, forty years ago, my first ride on a quality racing bike. It was definitely "nervous". For that matter, I think the first dropped-bar bike I rode felt the same.

Now, I'll switch from a tourer to a road bike or whatever, and not notice anything "amiss"in the steering. But that's not because there's no difference; it's because I've adapted. For that matter, I can switch to a trike now and not notice anything "amiss" either; that definitely has different handling!

If there were no difference, the magazine reviews that talk about handling would not make a lot of sense. Actually, I'm not sure how real the differences that the reviewers report actually are. Nonethless, on the scale of road bike vs tourer, I'd expect someone riding either for the first time to notice that it was different from the other.

I actually read a magazine review recently where the reviewe was honest enough to admit that most of the reviews were talking about the same set of gears on every bike rather than the actual characteristics of the bikes in terms of handling, acceleration etc.Quite a refreshing attitude I thought.