Polish bikes
- Thread starter Grant
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MattiThundrrr
Rattus All Terrainus
I wish I could remember the name of the member here who does European bikes. Didn't they have a bike in the last Build Off?
Edit: found it! @SpikeFC did a Ukrainian bike.
I know, not Polish, but he mentions "I will definitely need some help with my other Ukraine bicycle that I want to convert to a trekking-ish thing" in the thread.
http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/index.php?threads/kharkovskaya-lastochka-finished.108684/
Edit: found it! @SpikeFC did a Ukrainian bike.
I know, not Polish, but he mentions "I will definitely need some help with my other Ukraine bicycle that I want to convert to a trekking-ish thing" in the thread.
http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/index.php?threads/kharkovskaya-lastochka-finished.108684/
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You're right - that was me! I also have a lot of Polish bikes, since they were produced here
I'll post some photos when I get home since I have all of them on my home PC.
The Polish bikes that I have are:
1968 ZZR Pionier - a 22" bike that has been converted to a stretched.
1969 ZZR Karat - a 20" folding bike, it is starting in the Winter Build-Off.
1969 ZZR Karlik model 0242 - a 24" converted into a 26" cruiser.
1973 (or something) Romet Kasia/Piksi - a 16" girls bike.
1974 Romet Czajka - a 20" folding bike with a lot of original accessories from the period. Right now it jhangs on the wall in my shop.
1983 Romet Wagant - a 27" tourist bike found on a junkyard, converted to a 28" gravel bike (@Grant has probably already seen it)
There were a few famous (at least in Poland) bikes produced by Romet, for sale overseas that are very rare nowadays. Those include the ZZR/Romet Korlis bikes (20" and 26" cruisers, both men & ladies frames), Romet Motocross (made to look as cross motorbike), and something that kinda looked as a muscle bike - the Romet Polo-Lux
Also it's worth mentioning that up until the early 60'ies when most of the bicycle production was taken over by the communist party and socialized there were many famous polish bike producers like Otello, Herold, Kamiński, Mesko and even Łucznik (the factory that produced one of the best sewing machines, but most importantly - guns).
So let me start with a little trip to the past...
Sorry for some c...y images, but some of them date back to 2010 or even earlier.
This was the first bike that I ever mangled with - a 1977 Romet Wagant that i got from a friend of my mother, as a rusty pile of parts. Started working on it, cause my 24" wheel romet that I got years back was stolen. This was it's final form when it was finally properly "rebuild" into a single speed, using mostly racing spare parts. It was fun to build, and I sold it to my friend for about 150$ back in 2015.
This was the second bike that I ever build, found in my aunts shed as a pile of parts. As I recall a 1976 Romet Wigry. it had a 28" wheel fork (that I have to this day
- it was kinda expensive when I was 15 or 16 back at the time), a 20x1.75 front tire, and 20x2.125 tire in the back. The lights were powered by a 6V battery taken from a computer ups, and all the lights used regular 6V bulbs. Took it apart, and the frame was given as a present.
These three bikes I got from an older guy when he was selling his house, back in i think 2010, or 2011. The upper one was a Romet BMX from the eighties (i had a red one when I was younger, many of them came with tires matching the color of the frame). Took it apart, and gave the frame, fork, stem, steering bar with handles, and front wheel to a friend who wanted to build a bigwheeler from it.
The brown and red one were from the same year (1983), and both were Romet Wigry 3 folding bikes. Took the apart, cleaned & regresed them. The brown one was given as a present to my friend from Gdańsk, and the red one was sold for something like 20$ in 2015.
This was a Romet Turing 2 as I recall from 1981. That my friend found in a junkyard. Fitted it with MTB tires, I believe a Shwinn handlebar & a front light from a Star truck. The wierd thing about it was that it had all the regular Romet stickers except the one from the seat tube wich was with the Universal (export) brand. This was kinda normal in factories where the quality of bikes they build depended on the blood alcohol concentration of the workers on the assembly line...
The story behind this one is a bit complicated. Back in 2013 me & a friend found this Bałtyk frame in an attic of an abandonned house near the Kabaty forest. The frame was probbably new, but since the house was falling apart it had seen better days. In 2015 I traded some oldschool BMX parts for a set of 26" wheels with Shimano Nexus 3 speed rear hub, and a Shimano generator front hub, both fitted with Shimano Inter M roller brakes. And since I didn't have anywhere to put them... I made this. Bałtyk brand bicycles were made as one of the first bicycles in Poland after the war. This one was the R25 ladies model, and was probably produced in the early fifties. It was taken apart as a donor to another frame, and the frame was given away as a present.
This is the frame that got the wheels & most of the parts from the previous one. It was an early seventies Romet Laura. Rode it for almos a year, and after a half a year of standing outside I found a decent frame to put something cooler out of it. The frame - like the Bałtyk wass passed down as a present, and some of the parts used in my other bikes.
This was a 1971 Romet Karat that I found last winter in my aunts basement (technically not precisely "her" basement, but the basement that she took as hers, after some of her "good negihbours" proclaimed her basement as his
). Top photo is how I found it, and lower photos are after cleaning and brining it back to life. Nice thing was that it still had all original parts, including tubes & Degum brand tires. Sold it a month ago for 100$. Good price considering the fact that it is from 1971 (the year when ZZR changed name to Romet), 100% original and in not-that-bad of a condition, and since they're very scarce nowadays.
So from the past let us jump to the present with this one:
The first photo is with a 1966 ZZR Huragan racing bike that i gave to a friend of mine, and he did a perfect restoration of it (even the tires are original GDR made Pneumant racing tires - the same as the ones that it had). The bike is a 1973 Romet Czajka - a kind of an experimental folding bicycle. - the front and rear of the frameset is the same as in the previous model Karat, but the middle and the hinge are of a new type ised later in Wigry bicycle. These are old photos, right now it hangs as a decoration in my shop, and has almost all the accessories from the period, and stuff like original warranty card, manual, wrenches, tube valve replecements etc. I'm still collecting a lot of parts to make it into a most "lux" edition with front brake & half chrome headlight.
This is the cruiser that I made from the parts of the Romet Laura. the frame is a 1969 ZZR Karlik frame originaly fitted with 24" wheels. It's still a work in progress, but I love riding it. Also it has a gear ratio that would cost a Shimano mechanic a heart attack, since the Nexus hub is designed to run with 32T in front and 20/22T on the hub and I'm runnnig it with a 46T in front, and 16T on the hub
My top speed on flat on this baby was 48,8 km/h, so really fast for a 26" wheel cruiser with saddle bags
This is the Romet Laura/Piksi that I use on postapocalyptic parties & conventions. Cause what can be more hilarious than an adoult guy dressed in a leather jacket & pants, and a cowboy hat riding a 16" wheel bike shooting people from an airsoft replica. 100% fun Still in progress since it needs new tires, a better seat & wiring to all the lights in the front (and probably adding more of them - more lights means more fun
)
This is what I built from the 1969 (or 68) ZZR Pionier frame. Fun thing - no modifications to the frame were made. 24" in the front, 20" in the back. Right now it's torn apart and awaiting rebuild. Oh and the chain... it's like 3 and half chains
This is how the 1983 Romet Wagant looked like when my friend found it in the junkyard. This was the better model than my previous one (the stickers with the DORO76 production quality (wich translates to "Good Work 1976"), and Chechoslovakian Favorit derailleur. And this particular one didn't have an easy life... The handle bar, stem, and what was left of the seat were taken from an Ukraina bike or other Soviet bicycle, and it stood outside for a very long time. This is what I made of it:
A 28" wheel (insted of the original 27") Gravel bike. It uses a lot of Romet parts - the front derailleur, crankset, steering bar, brake handles & rear reflector with mount, and also a lot of parts from my favorite "Reusable Junk" box. The fun fact is that the wheels are made using the original Romet brass nipples and original racing hubs from a Romet Jaguar racing bike.
Also as a bonus:
This is a Romet Wigry 3 bike that I made with a friend back in 2008 for him to drive around the yard in his workplace (he works in the Warsaw Subway Trainyard, so it is a bit big yard...)
This is like an almost 100% factory stok (minding the lights & tires) Romet Kasia/Piksi would look like. Fun fact is that most of the smaller ZZR & Romet bicycles for kids were made as ladies frames with convertible tanks.
This is an unkown to me 26" ZZR bicycle from 1965 converted into a single speed. Probably something that was a single speed from the factory. ZZR & later Romet made a lot of "kinda racing" bicycles for kids with 24" and 26" wheels. Most of them were single, and the better ones were 5 speed bikes.
And this is a 100% Stock Romet Czajka. My friends formed a small club for Czajka owners called Szajka Czajki.
If you want even more photos of ZZR/Romet bicycles just let me know
Sorry for some c...y images, but some of them date back to 2010 or even earlier.
This was the first bike that I ever mangled with - a 1977 Romet Wagant that i got from a friend of my mother, as a rusty pile of parts. Started working on it, cause my 24" wheel romet that I got years back was stolen. This was it's final form when it was finally properly "rebuild" into a single speed, using mostly racing spare parts. It was fun to build, and I sold it to my friend for about 150$ back in 2015.
This was the second bike that I ever build, found in my aunts shed as a pile of parts. As I recall a 1976 Romet Wigry. it had a 28" wheel fork (that I have to this day
- it was kinda expensive when I was 15 or 16 back at the time), a 20x1.75 front tire, and 20x2.125 tire in the back. The lights were powered by a 6V battery taken from a computer ups, and all the lights used regular 6V bulbs. Took it apart, and the frame was given as a present.
These three bikes I got from an older guy when he was selling his house, back in i think 2010, or 2011. The upper one was a Romet BMX from the eighties (i had a red one when I was younger, many of them came with tires matching the color of the frame). Took it apart, and gave the frame, fork, stem, steering bar with handles, and front wheel to a friend who wanted to build a bigwheeler from it.
The brown and red one were from the same year (1983), and both were Romet Wigry 3 folding bikes. Took the apart, cleaned & regresed them. The brown one was given as a present to my friend from Gdańsk, and the red one was sold for something like 20$ in 2015.
This was a Romet Turing 2 as I recall from 1981. That my friend found in a junkyard. Fitted it with MTB tires, I believe a Shwinn handlebar & a front light from a Star truck. The wierd thing about it was that it had all the regular Romet stickers except the one from the seat tube wich was with the Universal (export) brand. This was kinda normal in factories where the quality of bikes they build depended on the blood alcohol concentration of the workers on the assembly line...
The story behind this one is a bit complicated. Back in 2013 me & a friend found this Bałtyk frame in an attic of an abandonned house near the Kabaty forest. The frame was probbably new, but since the house was falling apart it had seen better days. In 2015 I traded some oldschool BMX parts for a set of 26" wheels with Shimano Nexus 3 speed rear hub, and a Shimano generator front hub, both fitted with Shimano Inter M roller brakes. And since I didn't have anywhere to put them... I made this. Bałtyk brand bicycles were made as one of the first bicycles in Poland after the war. This one was the R25 ladies model, and was probably produced in the early fifties. It was taken apart as a donor to another frame, and the frame was given away as a present.
This is the frame that got the wheels & most of the parts from the previous one. It was an early seventies Romet Laura. Rode it for almos a year, and after a half a year of standing outside I found a decent frame to put something cooler out of it. The frame - like the Bałtyk wass passed down as a present, and some of the parts used in my other bikes.
This was a 1971 Romet Karat that I found last winter in my aunts basement (technically not precisely "her" basement, but the basement that she took as hers, after some of her "good negihbours" proclaimed her basement as his
). Top photo is how I found it, and lower photos are after cleaning and brining it back to life. Nice thing was that it still had all original parts, including tubes & Degum brand tires. Sold it a month ago for 100$. Good price considering the fact that it is from 1971 (the year when ZZR changed name to Romet), 100% original and in not-that-bad of a condition, and since they're very scarce nowadays.So from the past let us jump to the present with this one:
The first photo is with a 1966 ZZR Huragan racing bike that i gave to a friend of mine, and he did a perfect restoration of it (even the tires are original GDR made Pneumant racing tires - the same as the ones that it had). The bike is a 1973 Romet Czajka - a kind of an experimental folding bicycle. - the front and rear of the frameset is the same as in the previous model Karat, but the middle and the hinge are of a new type ised later in Wigry bicycle. These are old photos, right now it hangs as a decoration in my shop, and has almost all the accessories from the period, and stuff like original warranty card, manual, wrenches, tube valve replecements etc. I'm still collecting a lot of parts to make it into a most "lux" edition with front brake & half chrome headlight.
This is the cruiser that I made from the parts of the Romet Laura. the frame is a 1969 ZZR Karlik frame originaly fitted with 24" wheels. It's still a work in progress, but I love riding it. Also it has a gear ratio that would cost a Shimano mechanic a heart attack, since the Nexus hub is designed to run with 32T in front and 20/22T on the hub and I'm runnnig it with a 46T in front, and 16T on the hub
My top speed on flat on this baby was 48,8 km/h, so really fast for a 26" wheel cruiser with saddle bags
This is the Romet Laura/Piksi that I use on postapocalyptic parties & conventions. Cause what can be more hilarious than an adoult guy dressed in a leather jacket & pants, and a cowboy hat riding a 16" wheel bike shooting people from an airsoft replica. 100% fun Still in progress since it needs new tires, a better seat & wiring to all the lights in the front (and probably adding more of them - more lights means more fun
)
This is what I built from the 1969 (or 68) ZZR Pionier frame. Fun thing - no modifications to the frame were made. 24" in the front, 20" in the back. Right now it's torn apart and awaiting rebuild. Oh and the chain... it's like 3 and half chains
This is how the 1983 Romet Wagant looked like when my friend found it in the junkyard. This was the better model than my previous one (the stickers with the DORO76 production quality (wich translates to "Good Work 1976"), and Chechoslovakian Favorit derailleur. And this particular one didn't have an easy life... The handle bar, stem, and what was left of the seat were taken from an Ukraina bike or other Soviet bicycle, and it stood outside for a very long time. This is what I made of it:
A 28" wheel (insted of the original 27") Gravel bike. It uses a lot of Romet parts - the front derailleur, crankset, steering bar, brake handles & rear reflector with mount, and also a lot of parts from my favorite "Reusable Junk" box. The fun fact is that the wheels are made using the original Romet brass nipples and original racing hubs from a Romet Jaguar racing bike.
Also as a bonus:
This is a Romet Wigry 3 bike that I made with a friend back in 2008 for him to drive around the yard in his workplace (he works in the Warsaw Subway Trainyard, so it is a bit big yard...)
This is like an almost 100% factory stok (minding the lights & tires) Romet Kasia/Piksi would look like. Fun fact is that most of the smaller ZZR & Romet bicycles for kids were made as ladies frames with convertible tanks.
This is an unkown to me 26" ZZR bicycle from 1965 converted into a single speed. Probably something that was a single speed from the factory. ZZR & later Romet made a lot of "kinda racing" bicycles for kids with 24" and 26" wheels. Most of them were single, and the better ones were 5 speed bikes.
And this is a 100% Stock Romet Czajka. My friends formed a small club for Czajka owners called Szajka Czajki.
If you want even more photos of ZZR/Romet bicycles just let me know
Now this thing is actually not a strictly Polish bicycle. That frame is an early Soviet made MMB3 AUCM also called a Stork. Poland was flooded with Soviet bicycles in the early seventies since Russians made such gigantic amounts of them, that they couldn't sell them on their domestic market. They are known up till now for their heavy weight, sturdiness, and really bad design and poor materials.
Actually I only own the lower one. I would very much like to own the upper one since it's one of the Polish Racing legends - The ZZR Jaguar made on Columbus tubes, and fitted mostly with the best parts that could be. The only better ones were:
ZZR Jaguar Special. Fitted mostly with Camagnolo Nouvo Record group, Mafac brakes & handles, and Mavic rims.
And It's successor:
Romet Super.
To own one you needed to have connections in a cycling club, and buy them after they were sold used. They were only made for clubs, with the specifications variating on the money that the club could spend on it, and the ranking of the guy that would ride it. Back in the day, te price on those was of a good quality domestic car in Poland (A Fiat 125p or an FSO Polonez), and till now they reach gigantic prices, reaching even up to 4000$ depending on the accesories, originality and state.
I also made a short guide on helping in identification of the production year for ZZR/Romet bikes
Ofcourse that facebook cut the image and, I can't find the original one...
The missing line reads "the pedals, stem, BB axle and other small elements"
Also some of the bikes may have Degum brand tires - those are also original.
And here is a guide to headbadges & stickers:
The lower one reads "Korlis", and those were only on 26" wheel cruisers:
Ofcourse that facebook cut the image and, I can't find the original one...
The missing line reads "the pedals, stem, BB axle and other small elements"
Also some of the bikes may have Degum brand tires - those are also original.
And here is a guide to headbadges & stickers:
The lower one reads "Korlis", and those were only on 26" wheel cruisers:
Also Romet made 20" cruisers:
They were both with banana seats & normal seats.
16" kinda-muscle bikes
More traditional Muscle bikes like the Polo&Polo-Lux
Motorbike-like bicycles like this Motocross-Lux
In general Romet's production catalog is a as big as a phonebook with at least 1000 models of bicycles produced, and even more discontinued (yet still a lot of them were produced later on, only with changed names, like the Bałtyk later became ZZR Popularny, and later Romet Ambasador).
Still the most popular ones are the Romet Wagant:
And the ladies version called Gazela:
Very heavy utility bikes, usualy with only 4 or 5 speeds, and 21" frame sizes, with 27" (ETRTO 630) wheels.
And also - you can't find a true Pole who never owned, or at least rode the Romet Wigry.
I think even the people who worked at the factory don't know how many millions of these folding bikes were produced...
They were both with banana seats & normal seats.
16" kinda-muscle bikes
More traditional Muscle bikes like the Polo&Polo-Lux
Motorbike-like bicycles like this Motocross-Lux
In general Romet's production catalog is a as big as a phonebook with at least 1000 models of bicycles produced, and even more discontinued (yet still a lot of them were produced later on, only with changed names, like the Bałtyk later became ZZR Popularny, and later Romet Ambasador).
Still the most popular ones are the Romet Wagant:
And the ladies version called Gazela:
Very heavy utility bikes, usualy with only 4 or 5 speeds, and 21" frame sizes, with 27" (ETRTO 630) wheels.
And also - you can't find a true Pole who never owned, or at least rode the Romet Wigry.
I think even the people who worked at the factory don't know how many millions of these folding bikes were produced...
Yay, I see a Moskvitch 412 on the far right
That motocross bike is awesome!Motorbike-like bicycles like this Motocross-Lux
Is that a bike fork in moped style or is it a moped fork with a moped hub???
Yay, I see a Moskvitch 412 on the far right
Eyup! The license plates on all cars are from Ukraine, so the photo was probably taken there.
That's a regular front wheel & a special fork. Romet also produced mopeds - Komar, Kadet, Pony, Stella, Polo & the biggest one Ogar (I bought one of those a few years back as a present form my GF).
That fork is a little longer version of the Romet Pony/Stella moped fork, but basically since Pony was the smallest one of them all (designed for kids) it used axles of the same size as a bicycle & of almost the same width
How about Polish Mike?
Excuse me for being such a Meat Head.
It is a great show watch again though.
''Boy the way Glen Miller played...
Seriously an informative thread Grant, that sheds light on oft overlooked classics.
Thanks for posting.
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