This is part 2 of my story about how I put fenders on my road bike. Read about my motivation for doing this in the first installment.
There are a couple types of fenders made for road bikes. “Full” fenders cover the back wheel all the way down to the bottom bracket, and the front wheel from below the cranks to just past the front brake. There are also “clip-on” quick-release fenders made specifically for road bikes. An example of these is the SKS “Race Blade.” These work, but they are smaller and provide less wheel coverage than full fenders. I knew that full fenders would be a bigger job to mount on my bike, but I figured if I absolutely could not get them to fit, I could always fall back on the clip-ons. With that in mind, I went shopping for a set of full fenders. The two biggest names in inexpensive road bike fenders seem to be SKS and Planet Bike. I read up on both, and eventually decided to go with a set of Planet Bike “Cascadia” fenders, which I ordered from Niagra Cycle Works. The fenders arrived after a few days and I went to work putting them on.
Full fenders typically attach to the bike in two places. The top of the fender attaches to the front fork or rear brake bridge, and the back of the fender is supported by struts that attach to threaded holes in the bike frame near the hubs. The rear fender is usually also attached to the “seat stay bridge,” a short horizontal piece between the bottom bracket and the rear wheel. On a road bike with caliper brakes, the fender goes between the brake caliper and the tire, and typically shares the same mounting hole with the brake. So, to accommodate fenders, the bike needs:
- Adequate vertical clearance underneath the front fork and between the brake calipers and the tire
- Threaded holes on the front fork and rear seat/chainstays, near the hubs
- Some way to attach the tops of the fenders to the front fork / rear brake bridge (possibly sharing the brake mounting hole)
- A seat stay bridge piece to attach the front end of the rear fender
My bike met some of the criteria. All of the clearances were adequate, and it had a seat stay bridge and the necessary mounting holes for the rear fender (although I was currently using them for my rack). The problems: It had no mounting holes on the front fork, and no easy way to attach the tops of the fenders to the brake mounts. So I would need to work around these limitations somehow.
I began by mounting the rear fender. I unbolted my rack and attached the fender struts underneath the rack supports. Conveniently, the rack’s mounting bolt was long enough to accommodate both the fender struts and the rack supports, so I bolted them both to the same hole. The front of the fender attached easily to the chain stay bridge using a zip tie. For the top, Planet Bike uses a snap-on plastic clip. The clip has a bolt slot that’s intended to mount behind the rear brake, but as mentioned above, there’s nowhere there I can bolt it; the rear brake is attached with a recessed hex nut that does not have threads to accept a fender bolt. However, I was able to use zip ties to attach the mounting clip to the seat stays (this is covered in Planet Bike’s instructions), so problem solved there. This mounting method does slightly reduce the fender’s clearance underneath the brake, though, so it may not be usable on a bike with extremely limited clearance. Once the fender was mounted, I adjusted the struts until it didn’t rub the tire, and I was done. That was pretty easy.
The front fender was more of a challenge. My fork doesn’t have holes to mount the struts, so I had to improvise. A couple of web sites recommended using metal or nylon p-clamps, but I can’t use these on my fork because its arms are not round enough. Instead, I opted to just zip-tie the struts to the fork. This is not an ideal solution, but it works well enough. the quick-release skewer caps keep the ties from slipping off the fork, and the ties seem to stay in place otherwise. But I’d still like to come up with something more elegant. On to the top. The front fender has a permanently-attached metal bracket instead of a plastic clip. The front brake uses the same type of recessed nut as the rear brake, so there’s nowhere to attach the bracket behind the fork. But unlike the rear, there’s nowhere on the fork to zip-tie the bracket either. So my only option was to remove the front brake and mount the bracket between the brake and the fork (actually behind the lock nut that retains the brake spring — otherwise the bracket didn’t clear the steering tube). I did this, and wasn’t happy with the results. It made it impossible to adjust the fender’s position without also affecting the brake, and it also made it impossible to easily remove the fender. I needed a better solution, so I went web surfing again, and found out about Problem Solvers Sheldon Fender Nuts.
Sheldon Fender Nuts replace the recessed nuts that hold the brake calipers in place. The difference is, the Sheldon nuts are slightly longer, so they protrude outside the brake mounting hole, and they have a thread to accept a fender mounting bolt. The front fender can then mount behind the fork as intended, and the fenders can be adjusted independently of the brakes. The nuts come in sets of 2 (one for back and one for front). I ordered a set from Jenson USA. The front nut was an extremely tight fit in my fork. Initially, I had to tap it with a hammer to seat it enough to mate with the threads on the brake, but eventually it “broke in” enough that I could thread it on and off the brake without too much trouble. I was worried I’d torque it apart or otherwise destroy it, but it turned out to be pretty sturdy. The mounting bolts that came with the Cascadia fenders did not fit the thread on the Sheldon nut — I had to scrounge up some matching bolts and washers from my parts drawer. After that, though, the fender went on easily and was a snap to adjust. So far I’ve only used the Sheldon nut on the front fender. Eventually I’ll take the zip ties off the back fender and remount it with the Sheldon nut, but the nuts were worth the price just for the front.
Initially, I couldn’t get the front wheel to stop rubbing the fender. No amount of fiddling with the fender seemed to help. Finally I figured out that my wheel was not properly centered in the fork. I undid the quick release and centered the wheel, and suddenly the fender no longer rubbed. There’s not a whole lot of side-to-side tolerance with these fenders, so buyer beware. I’m a little worried at what might happen if I break a spoke..
After the fenders were on, I didn’t have to wait long to test them out. I took the bike out shortly after a storm, and the fenders worked like a champ. I hit my first puddle and watched all the water squirt out the front of the fender, instead of up on the bike, my clothes, etc. In normal riding conditions, I don’t really notice the fenders except for maybe a rattle here or there when I hit a bump. The fenders don’t get in my way at all. The instructions warn that my foot might touch the front fender during slow turns, but I haven’t had that problem. All in all, even if the installation was a bit of a pain, the fenders were well worth it and I highly recommend them for all-weather commuting.