Airflo, Speedline, Arrow, No-Nose are names that refer to some of the most desirable prewar balloon tire bikes built by Shelby Cycle Co. in Shelby, Ohio from 1938-1941.
So what’s the difference between a Speedline and an Arrow? What does “No-Nose” mean? Are these all Airflos? To answer these questions you have to understand both the marketing and collector lingo.
Shelby used the term “Airflo” to refer to its entire line of bicycles. For their top-of-the-line Airflos they had ads that referred to them as “Speedlines”. For the sake of clarity most collectors refer to these bikes as ‘Speedlines’. The ‘nose’ (the part that extends past the head tube) of a Speedline tank slopes downward.
On the marketing side of the house Shelby, like a lot of other manuacturers, built bikes for retailers such as parts stores e.g. Western Auto but before WWII they also had an agreement with Gambles Department stores to provide them with specially designed bicycles exclusive to Gambles. This was much like the agreement Sears had with Westfield to build the Bluebird, Skylark, and Robin. These Gambles bicycles were branded as the Hiawatha Arrow. Some of these will have a decal on the tank that says “Hiawatha Arrow” but many do not. The one thing all Arrows have whether boys or girls is the Indian head ornament on the front fender. Also notice the ‘nose’ slopes upward.
Technically, the Model 52 Airflo, the so called ‘No-Nose’ refers to the tank stopping at the head tube. These bikes use a conventional head badge and were offered both as Shelby and Hiawatha branded bikes. The Hiawatha bikes will have both a Gambles Hiawatha head badge as well as the Indian head ornament on the front fender. Incidently this is one way to tell if a bare frame had a ‘nosed’ (either Speedline or Arrow) tank. If there are no head badge holes this is an indication that the bike was originally a Speedline or Arrow.
The boy bikes are all built on essentially the same ‘wishbone’ frame. There are two styles of this frame though. One with a straight downtube and one with a curved downtube. Generally speaking the Shelby badged bikes had a straight downtube whereas the Arrow has a curved downtube. I say “generally” because as you will see in a bit this doesn’t hold true for the later (approx late ’40-’41) bikes.
So far I’ve only addressed the boys bikes. The girls big tank bikes are all built on the same frame and have the same style tank regardless of whether a Speedline or Arrow. Again the Arrow will have the Indian head ornament and the Speedline will have the fender mounted tear drop badge.
As you study these bikes you will find much variety in the equipment such as seats, bars, guards, racks, etc… . It is beyond the scope of this blog to go into exacting detail but I would like to finish with two things. First is what some call the ‘surplus’ bikes. These bikes were built likely starting sometime in late 1940 and through 1941. This is where all bets are off concerning frames and tanks as you will find some straight down tube frames badged as Arrows and some curved downtube frames badged as Speedlines which is the reverse of normal. You will also see a great variety of equipment on these bikes some of it being from the earlier years. The reason collectors call these ‘surplus’ bikes is that it appears Shelby was using leftovers on the shelves to put bikes together. While most of these can be pretty plain, such as the boys bike pictured below, the 1941 girls bike pictured above has many of the deluxe features of previous years bikes.
As seen above in the badges shown Shelby built bicycles for other retailers such as auto stores, department stores, hardware stores, as well as using a lot of different in-house badges such as “Supreme” and “Flying Cloud”. There is one badge that comes up though that was not put on a bicycle.
This badge was used on the Shelby “Beauty Bike” which was an exercise bike complete with a Clipper speedometer!
Hopefully this short blog answers some questions and clears up some confusion regarding these beautiful bikes. Enjoy the ride!
