Greg and I have a car “thing” along with our bike “thing.” Especially for vintage race cars – mostly late 60’s and early 70’s. The Gulf Porsche 917 is maybe one of the most iconic and we love it. We love it so much we decided to have one of our Simplified bikes painted in this distinctive color scheme. You may be wondering “what is your Simplified bike line?” Well, at one time early on at Schlick Cycles we were dabbling with a line of singlespeed bikes. We learned pretty quickly that gears are good. We live in a fairly hilly area around Milwaukee and because of our technical savvy with various gearing drive trains (okay maybe our age and fitness level had something to do with it), we have only built bikes with multiple gears from that point on.
So, this particular bike started out as a single speed with cow horn bars and only one gear.
It was a hit at shows. But, it sat around our shop eventually just as a frame as parts were pilfered for other projects.
Early last year a friend decided to make his old school GT dirt bike a two speed so his son could keep up with the family. That’s when I decided to make our Gulf bike into a multi gear bike. This SRAM hub is a cool piece. It automatically shifts into a higher gear when the wheel reaches a certain rpm. No shifters required!
To make my Gulf bike conversion, I looked closely at pictures of the Gulf Porsche 917 and tried to give our bike as much Gulf detail as possible. I kept the wheels and spokes black with a chrome hub (in front, the 2 speed SRAM in back). I gave it slick tires and made it more road racey with an old Ritchey cockpit that Greg had laying around.
So although it isn’t brand new, it is a one of a kind. It is a proper road bike, with just enough gearing to get around town, or maybe go cruise your closest vintage car race paddocks. If we don’t sell it prior to the vintage event at Road America, we’ll post pictures of it with the real car (as long as one shows up).
If you are interested in having this unique bike for your own, please contact us at info@schlickcycles.com.