The past few mornings have been adequately soaky. While I've missed the downpours themselves, the pulpy roadway with all its grime has been right there, waiting to make a mess of me. I never came right out and said it, but I recently stripped the rear fender from my bike -- or rather, I removed the three or four fender pieces from my bike based on their inability to stay in one piece, keep from rubbing the tire and actually keep stuff from splashing up onto me.
Fortunately, I was ahead of the game yesterday morning. When I heard the thunder outside, I still had about 10 minutes to get out the door. I stripped the mudflap from my mountain bike and snapped it down to the top of my cargo rack with the spring clip. It didn't keep grime off the back of my legs, but it did keep me from getting the stripe up my back.
Meanwhile, JR ordered a pair of Planet Bike Cascadia fenders for me. I hope I like them as much as other commuters do. Many of the people whose blogs I read seem to use and love the Cascadias. I had bad, bad luck with the SKS Commuter fenders. Even though they were Plastic-covered aluminum and not just plain plastic, they still cracked into pieces. The front is still only cracked in one place, and being held together by some black duct tape. Gerrymandering, indeed. My poor Twelve.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Fender Gerrymandering
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4 comments:
I have the freddy hardcores and they work pretty well. I've had to take the front wheel off a few times leaving the fender in place. It has handled all of the shoving and mangling of getting in and out of trunk without any problems. The PB stuff in general is just rock solid.
You'll love the Cascadias I have a set on my '07 Sirrus and I have Hardcores on my Alpine. Both sets have survived tire changes supporting the bikes and have held up well..
I just looked up the definition of Gerrymandering. I suppose that was not the right word to use. I was flipping through my mental index of strange words whilst on the bus this morning, attempting to avoid the words for "barely suitable fixed" that marginalize minorities, which would end up with titles like "Redneck Fender", "Ghetto Fender" and stuff like that. I suppose "Fender Jury-Rigging" is the title I was attempting to frob from my brain.
I have the PB Cascadia's on three of my bikes. Love 'em! I haven't had any problems with them after thousands and thousands of miles. I'm guessing the three sets of fenders have 15,000 combined miles on them(give or take 500 miles). Now, if only Planet Bike would make a set that would fit my 3.7" wide Endomorphs on my Pugsley? I'd be set for anything the elements could throw at me.
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