My Shelby

Not even close to as trick as the bike below.. this is my 1938 Shelby Pre War frame with a mixture of pre war parts except the bars they're off a 3 speed or something. I looked for one of these Shelby Pre War Cruiser frames for over a year.. then after I found one I couldn't decide how I wanted to build it up. It had to be rideable.. couldn't be a boardwalk cruiser. Too many hills around here for one of those. I thought I'd build it up like an 80's Repack Mt Tam Clunker with gears and parts to match those early Mountain Bike efforts.. but I liked the old cruiser parts too much to put any road bike and BMX parts on it. In the end it turned out suprisingly rideable with a moderate gear ratio that you can spin on the flats and still get up the hills with. I am going to relace the wheels with new spokes .. the spokes are so rusty and weak that there is no truing them. When using the coaster brake I keep thinking I'm going to rip the whole hub out of the spokes.

The seat looks like a ball buster but it's pretty comfortable. I hammered down the sides to make it more narrow for leg clearance. The front of the seat sits solely on a spring and gives the seat a bit of suspension for the nose of the saddle. It works pretty well for how simple it is.. wouldn't want to be sitting on it and hit any big bumps though.

The Shelby frame has the original headset which looks like the integrated headsets you see on present day bikes. I can't bare to cover up the brazing on the frame with paint so I just put gun blue on it .