October 1, 2009

Mini Fender

I hate fenders. I hate them so fucking much. They rattle and get in the way, and make your bike heavier and less fun to ride. It is a fact though that sometimes fenders are really nice to have. If you're riding in Minnesota winters they're pretty much a necessity. Last year I got into a nice set of Civia metal fenders. I liked them quite a bit because metal doesn't rattle like plastic fenders do, although I did make some modifications, like moving the strut mounts up and cutting off excess length from both the rear and front. (the Civia fenders are wicked long, for maximum coverage)
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Well the rear one went awesome and I ended up leaving it on for the summer rain. The front fender however got destroyed on a particularly snowy and shitty day where I was traveling very slowly with a front end that was constantly wandering on me. I ended up kicking it enough times with my foot that the mount for the strut in the fender eventually pulled through.
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So for this winter I've installed a mini fender. This solves two issues. no struts or fender to get in the way of your feet and a single hard attachment that doesn't rattle.

The fender was taken off an old Schwinn Stardust banana seat girls bike that I had lying around. I pounded the fender into a flatter shape with a rubber mallet on the concrete floor to allow it to fit a 700c tire. Then I simply used the stock hardware with a chainring spacer to take up the gap.

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Here's my thinking: you don't always need a front fender. Typically when it's below freezing and not actively snowing the roads are fairly dry. For those times when you unexpectedly get caught on wet roads you have a decent enough fender that will keep you way drier than having none at all
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on days when you know it's going to be wet, like today. You can add a downtube clip on fender and get pretty much full coverage. No strut or fender blade in your feet, and no worries.
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I ran this setup for the first time during the rain storms today, and it worked great. There was a bit more splashing onto my shoes than you'd get with a full front fender, but it was totally acceptable and still way better in my opinion.

1 comment:

Nova_C said...

Have you measured those Civias for width? I'm trying to figure out if I have clearance for them on my fixte, but all I can find is that they "fit tires up to 35c".