Hello everybody.
I tought my weird collection of bikes might be interesting to people here, soviet bicycles seem to be quite undocumented here. Being from a ex USSR occupied country, we have alot of this stuff laying around here. I also have some pre WW2 german stuff and one complete bike, might make another thread about it.
Lets start with the road bike, as i got it earliest in my adventure into the skinny tire world.
I found it on facebook marketplace, i was looking for the way more common HVZ Start Shosse or as translated Go Highway. Chromed fork ends caught my eye as they are uncommon on Starts, as it turned out it was a much earlier version of the Start Shosse - HVZ Champion made in 1962. It was in quite bad shape and in hindsight not worthy of a restoration, but it got done anyway. Chrome was sadly unsaveable. It was painted in automotive paint my friend had laying around, so the colour wasnt exactly my choice but i think it looks pretty cool. Its missing original brakes, and the front derailleur, and shifters were originally on the handlebar ends. I found NOS soviet tubulars for this thing. I suppose you will find most of the parts on this bike similar to the western parts they were copied off. Rear derailleur is a crude copy of Campy, brakes are Mafac Racer copies and so on.
During the paint removal stages, i noticed how this bike was painted in a Favorit livery, guess it was a effort to appear more western and look cooler back in the day.
As found:
Favorit livery with the original green mostly uncovered.
Completed
Nos, quality of them is pretty terrible.
Upgraded to earlier more correct brakes and got the original badge for it