Last spring I found a discarded Russian road bike. Missing saddle, seatpost, rear brake; frame painted over 2 times, squashed rear triangle, some small dents on top tube, stem and fork ruined when at some point somebody tried to remove the former with a sledgehammer. As usual for HVZ (Harkov Velosipednoi Zavod - Bicycle Factory of Harkov), very little aluminum used - only rims for tubular tires, handlebar, brakes and brake levers, shifter levers; all covered with white powdery aluminum oxide. Hubs, stem, cranks, derailers solid, heavy steel with some rust. These bikes weight around 14 kg (31 pounds) in original condition. As an oddity, front brake was Italian Universal 68. Rear dropout stamped with number "61", which should indicate year of production. You get an idea what an original bike looks like here (1986 version, but very little changes - mainly lugs and decals):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dareram...57631721022653
Since the bike was in such a bad shape I never thought of restoration. I discarded everything except the frame and the Universal brake, also kept original derailer and shifter for "museum".
Note that even pulley wheels are steel!
At first I thought going single-speed/fixed gear and doing it on cheap. After spreading out the rear triangle to 126 mm I got a friend-of-a-friend to sandblast the frame, then painted it with spray paints. I slowly started to gather various parts from local bike shops - got a used chromed fork, Brooks B17 and whole new headset, bottom bracket, seatpost, cranks with a single 44T chainring and other small parts. While still thinking about wheelset, handlebar etc, a friend gave me an old incomplete road bike with a too big frame for both of us, but with nice vintage Shimano 105 group, wheels, stem and handlebar , so decided to use these (except the cranks - neither black or silver, but white, they look totally off on my selected color scheme). Lastly I got a new, narrower drop bars to suit me better and pedals with toe clips, also a cheap Cateye computer and aluminum thermal bottle for added bling. What remains to be done is to get 50/34T 110 mm BCD chainrings and add front derailer/shifter.
I call it "Kimalane", which means bumblebee in Estonian, but is also a wordplay on verb "kimama" which means "to speed; drive/ride very fast"
The name kind of floated up and sticked when finished painting.
More pics (including some I took while cooking an ersatz Proofide) here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/1057095...97456/Kimalane