The tire and wheel combo, in my opinion, look fantastic!!! The wheel and the tire are virtually the exact same color, so it looks like it's all one piece which is awesome. Unfortunately, there were a couple of issues.
First, you'll notice that the bike doesn't have it's front fender on it. I was a bit worried about this happening with the Fat Frank tires, but the fender doesn't fit on the bike correctly with those tires. The supports for it rub just a little bit on the tire, which isn't a good thing. But there's a solution for that, more on that later.
The other issue?? Well, I think you'll be able to tell from this next picture...
Yup. Notice how there's two different colored tires on there right now?? Why would that be?? Well, Amazon sent me two tires, one Fat Frank, and then one other tire that wasn't even remotely close to what I ordered. It was a Delta Cruiser tire for a 700c sized roadbike...so there's no way it would have fit. I contacted them and they sent out another tire. It should be here on Saturday, so I should be able to get it on there on Saturday night after I get home from work.
The other issue that came up with installing the new wheel on the front was I noticed a few spots on the paint that need to be touched up. Not a big deal, but something that I hadn't even noticed at all before.
Now...I mentioned earlier in this post that there may be a solution to the fact that the fenders don't fit with the new tires. I found a guy online that make some really awesome looking wooden fenders. They are custom made and come with all of the mounting brackets and such to get them to fit on the bike. I'm looking at a set of Leopard Wood with curved maple stripes going through it. It looks like this.
They look pretty great on bikes, but I'm not sure that I want to spend the money on them. They are fairly pricey, at about $100 for the pair. But they are definitely custom, definitely different, and would probably work really well on the beach cruiser.
The other option, of course, is to just leave the fenders off of it, which is a very viable option. In fact, I'll have to wait until I get the other tire and wheel on the bike before I even decide if I want to try and go with fenders or not. But if I do, it will probably end up being these wooden fenders. To go with them, they also make wooden chain guards and wooden rear racks. Both of which would look great with the wooden fenders on the bike.
Overall, even though I wasn't able to get the entire bike finished today, I really like the way that they tires and wheels are going to look. I'll be looking forward to getting the other new tire in a few days so that I can get it on there.
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