I've always been rather jealous of the finds listed in this thread. During the recent hard rubbish season in Monash and Kingston council areas I've been keeping my eyes open for a bike for my SS project. After 2 months of cruising around at lunchtime or to and from work I had the grand total of:
A 'De Carlo' Pulse - sounds exotic , but A 1980's Rays Bicycles house brand.
A Raleigh Team 12 - minus brakes , but with the bonus of a corroded in alloy stem.
A Malvernstar Ultrasport - Are vintage profile bars worth anything?
None of them particularly exciting, but I figured that with this lot and a few miscellaneous BMX freewheels and assorted crappy alloy wheels I had the makings of a serviceable SS build.
Anyway, last Sunday my wife and I are driving back from picking our 2 cats and a dog up from boarding after a weekend away. As we are slowing down to the lights I see a bike frame sticking out of a bile of rubbish, and a couple of wheels nearby.
I figure our little car is fully loaded already. I have enough junk, its probably a mountain bike frame and those are probably steel wheels anyway. So we continue home and I din't think too much more about it
Some hours later, the Misses asks me to go to the supermarket to pick some stuff up. I figure that on the way I might as well check out those bike bits. I park around the corner and walk back to the pile for a look. Bugger me if I don't see a set of trackends sticking out of the pile. Quick as a flash the frame is in my grubby mitts, but unfortunately there's no fork. Oh well its a nice score anyway and those Stronglight cranks are a nice catch, and I'll grab that alloy wheel with 5 speed cluster as well.
Some time later I'm wandering around the supermarket, thinking about which frame can donate some forks and it occurs to me that the bike was well in bits and the pile was quite large - maybe I should go back on the off chance the forks still are there.
So shopping done I'm back at the junk pile. At this point I have no shame. Ignoring the drivers stopped next to me at the lights I rummage and am rewarded with - a pair of twin crown forks - What idiot throws away a thing of such beauty?
More rummaging turns up :
Track bars with very rusty Cinelli steel stem attached
A Freccia D'oro Plastic seat
A pair of Weinmann Type 500 brakes
A Suntour Honour derailleur with Huret friction shifter.
My guess is that the frame dates from the 50's and the Weinnman brakes, 5speed rear end, plastic saddle and
Stronglight cranks are from a rebuild in the 1970's.
I haven't been able to find any makers details on the frame. Some of the lugs are Nervex professional series and the frame + forks + Bottom bracket and cranks weigh 3.82Kg, so its reasonably light.
Does anyone have any better ideas on the era and origins of this frame? It certainly caused some rearrangement of the SS plans!
More photos at :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rf_toaster ... 037056753/
Ian
Sized perfectly for me 54cm. YAY!!! Bought with the intention of fixifying it to emulate the old man's Flash track bike...but, before I do that, your thoughts please, as a weird mix of components. Rims are aluminium 27" Fiammes, laced with double butted SS spokes to Shimano high flanges. Has Suntour Cyclone friction derailleurs/shifters, no name aluminium cranks, Diacompe brakes and stem, 3TTT bars, stamped dropouts and bad paint over okay chrome. Nice ornate lugs on the headtube too...restore as a retro racer or strip back to ride as a fixie?
I found one the same on the net in America so it confirms it was a factory mistake, easy I guess if you cant speak english! Also I found out that the rear derailler was a doozy in the day, Suntour V GT Luxe. And I have to smile at the sticker proudly stating that its made from ultra lite steel,
Bad people! 
