Fun with fenders
We had an essentially snowless March, yet I made the Portland wear its winter fenders through the whole month. The PlanetBike Cascadia fenders in 45mm sure worked great with my Nokian Hakkapeliitta W106 studded snow tires.
They look quite butch too, when paired with the Nokians. The whole effect is one of muscular capability. With the road tires, not so much. In fact, fat fenders and skinny tires make the bike look downright silly.
Yellow Bike has been looking quite handsome wearing the Portland’s sexy, slim and silvery SKS P35 fenders through the winter. It really fought against them. It was like trying stuff an angry toddler into a snowsuit. It did everything but poop a diaper.
On its first real wet ride with them, it relented. One last tweak and it was happy as a bike could be, knowing the fenders looked pretty snazzy, kept it clean, and got it down off its hook and on the road a lot more often through the cold weather.
For the past several weeks I’ve toyed with the idea of leaving the P35s on Yellow Bike and getting a new set for the Portland. Then, going through my parts box the other day I spied the road caliper fender mounts for the Portland’s factory “fenderettes”, a/k/a Bontrager Satellite fenders.
Well, now for summer, Yellow Bike can have the best of both worlds. We can run with open wheels in the dry, and in the damp, it takes just seconds to slip on the fenderettes. It’s looking mighty sporty with them mounted right now. In fact, I think Yellow Bike looks better with them than the Portland does.
Anyway, the Satellite fenders come with two sets of mounting hardware. One set for road caliper brakes, like Yellow Bike, and another for all other bikes, like the Portland. Come July and August, when I use the Satellites on the Portland while traveling, I can just swap them back and forth.
Meanwhile, the Portland is back in its slim and silvery P35s, and the Cascadias are in the basement with the Nokians, waiting for snow next November.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:27 pm EST
I’ve found that fenders without a machined “lip” do little to actually prevent road spray, except for the rooster tail up my backside. When riding in constant rain, if you’re going to have fenders mounted, it is important to have ones that have the machined edge (lip). This allows the rain which accumulates on the underside of the fender to drain downward and off the bottom of the fender toward the ground, instead of running outward and off the sides of the fender, straight into the leg. I’ve found that good fenders and proper application of same has saved me a lot of wear and tear on gear and on days when there is a little rain but a lot of wet pavement, good fenders properly installed will keep my feet dry.