Fenders: What's going on here?
 

Fenders. You gotta love them if you live anywhere North and Berlin, Germany is north and is rainy.

So my Commuter/Brevet bike (the wonderful Elephant NFE) has the Sim Works (Honjo) 62mm Fenders. They wrap around the Schwalbe G-One Speed (50mm which does not blow up to 50mm on Velocity Aileron 650b) pretty nicely and go pretty deep.

Yet, my dive train gets splashed like there are no fenders. My commute shoes come out super wet and as you can see in the pictures, everything is super muddy and dirty.

The question to the revered forum pals: Am I doing something wrong? Is this "to be expected"? Anything that I can do to help the situation?

Thanks and happy holidays!

Pretty much to be expected.

You can attach a leather mud flap to the bottom screws on your fender. That will cut down the tire spray even more.

You better hope the rain in southern England does head your way or water will be over the bottom bracket on your rides.

Keep in mind fenders reduce spray, dirt, and salt...yet does not eliminate it.
You could explore longer/wider fenders coupled with a front flap.
It might also be that the fenders you have installed are doing their best...

It's worse without fenders.

That's all..

SPP

Is your glass half empty or half full?

As has been said; fenders aren't perfect, but go without them for a ride and see the difference.

It's possible a smaller width tire will hide within the confines of the fender better and result in less overspray.

The mudflaps were a good suggestion as well.

In addition to the other comments about adding a front flap, and adjusting your expectations, I will add that those large volume tires sling a lot of merde. That is a lot of surface area for water, mud, rocks to attach, and they will broadcast all of that media with every revolution. Imagine what you and your bicycle would look like without the fenders.

plus, some tires kick up more crap than others

I have a close friend that commutes all year. He added an additional mud flap to both front and back fenders. He also went so far as to add a flap in the chain stay/seatpost area to reduce spray to the bb/crankset area.

As others have said-front mudflap. I think it's design-dependent. I've used stiff ones that sort of continue the contour you have going. They can act as a ramp for the water, further deflecting upward. Still better than no mud flap, though they also kick up twigs and trail debris. Ideally I think it needs to have a bit of flex in order to hang a bit more vertical. Other than that, what you have going is about as good as you can expect with tires that wide. In fact it looks pretty good to me. I'm not seeing "super muddy and dirty", just a bit on the rims and fenders.

The front mudflap is astonishingly effective.

you could get a flap for the front, and one for the back (so you don't splash your buddies).

Fenders are fine, they help a bit but far from the magical holy thing that some people make them out to be (hello bicycle quarterly). To me the best thing is the drivetrain is indeed cleaner and might let you wait a few rides btw bike cleans. As far as getting wet, meh, you still wet, feet are soaked because a lot of times the fender just sends a nice large stream of water straight into your foot.

They are great if the road is a bit wet but once its soaked, I could go without them like 95% of the time. But I do like an ass saver or better, the SKS strap fender so that your back stays dry and mud free.


Also, that drive train looks pretty clean to me for after ridding rain and dirt

I resolved a similar issue on my commuter (Black Mountain Monstercross) by dropping down from the Marathon Supremes I was running (2.0 inches wide) to a 'more reasonable' 28mm tire. Greatly reduced the amount of water and debris thrown by the tires, which allowed the fenders to do their job much better.

I can’t quite tell from the photos, but dropping the fenders a bit closer to the tire will reduce the mess. I had Honjos on my commuter that were very tight fitting and effective. I removed and switched to SKS ones with much more room and I seem to be getting wetter now.

Not necessarily. Honjos work much better than SKS, because they have a folded lip at the edge that keeps the water inside.

As for OP's issue, 62mm wide fenders are rather marginal for 50mm tires. Also, mudflaps would help.

Perhaps try these or a homemade version, but your front fender does appear to come down pretty low. As others have said, mudflaps aren't perfect, but the alternative is much worse.

http://buddyflaps.com/product/skeleton

You have a bit more coverage than I do on my 26X2" tires with Planet Bike fenders. The toes of my shoes and my drivetrain still get some splash. As long as my back, butt and most of me stays clean then I'm good.

I think your fenders aren't quite wide enough for those tires. Not that you can do anything about that, but if they were wider you would have better coverage.

Fenders aren't for keeping you dry, they're for minimizing road spray. If you cycle in wet weather, you're going to get wet, whether it falls from the sky or sweats from your body.

Anyway, the biggest problem that stands out is that your front fender doesn't come down low enough. You should probably add a mudflap: the VO leather ones that have been shown offer good coverage, although they're heavy and expensive. You can make your own out of thin pieces of plastic or whatever if you want.

But your bike doesn't look all that dirty anyway, for having not been cleaned after a wet ride.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I'll try mudflaps first. It might really be worth going back to my Rene Herse 42mm tires to see how much spray I get.

Will 3mm more fenders (65mm SIM Works) offer more coverage?

Wider tires spray water in a v-shaped wake directly from the tire much more than narrower tires. Fender width doesn't help above a certain speed or water depth.

My 650bx47 front tire throws significantly more water on my feet and drivetrain (even with full coverage and flap) than 700cx25 and even 700cx38 with same ratio width fender and flap coverage. Couple this with the wind blowing droplets sideways and capillary action - even fendered bikes get wet and dirty. You can stay completely dry like you read about in the magazines by riding extremely slowly, or riding in the kind of misty rain that doesn't produce puddles.

Here's an action pic (you can also see the dam created by my lazy flap install):

https://drandalls.files.wordpress.co...size=607%2C607

Ameliorating actions seem to be:

• Adjust expectations
• Add a proper mud-flap

Cool colour, full pic of the bike please!

Really needs a complement of corrections:

1. Size tires down and go for less tread.
2. Size the fenders up farther -- you want a fender at least 50% wider than the tire. A 42 mm fender with a 28 mm tire gives pretty exhaustive protection from splatter, as a case in point.
3. Front and rear, you want mudflaps that drop to within an inch or so of the ground. There's enough room under your front fender to throw water and grit all day long at your feet and the front chainring.
4. I'd suggest getting Buddyflaps. Not only are they cheaper, they work better, don't sail in the wind, and they don't induce vibrations in the fenders that cause them to crack.
5. Consider this: Fenders aren't going to be much use and may pose a risk in real off-road conditions. So if you're really on roads gnarly enough to need 50 mm tires, you could ditch the fenders. The grit on your bike looks more like basic paved-road grit, in which case you'd be a LOT faster and happier with a 35-38 mm tire instead.

Concur that fenders work best with thinner pavement-specific tires.
My customized (extra welded reinforcement) Berthoud SS fenders are securely and permanently mounted on one of my sleek roadbikes.

Using fenders on a bicycle equipped with 50mm+ tires indicates to me the fenders would spend their lifetime getting twisted, torqued, rattled, and making lots of noise prior to them just getting broken from rough use.

Fenders get stiffer as they get wider. 3 points of contact at front and rear is another way to stiffen them up but not required from what I've seen of the 63mm VO model. I do lots of rough gravel on my 52mm VO Zepps and they've been completely silent, for two seasons now.

Here's an example descent, I probably see a couple miles of this a few times a ride - in addition to more sedate gravel. For the curious this is near Treat Mountain Road in West Georgia.
https://drandalls.files.wordpress.co...size=607%2C607

Aluminum fenders are very durable if installed with minimal stress. Shaping is a prerequisite of long life.

Here's an addendum to my earlier post that took me a bit to find, it shows the spray zone from short fenders: https://www.renehersecycles.com/why-...es-any-longer/

Great comments everyone, thanks.

A few points:

1. Aluminum fenders are super strong. I never had any problems with riding off-road with my setup.

2. I do recall getting much less sprayed when I was using the Rene Herse 42mm tires. Honestly, I'd go back in a heartbeat, but would like Jan to start making them in black in standard casing.

3. The bike spends most of its life on roads. I don't "need" 50mm tires on it, but I do like the comfort they offer.

4. It seems that there is strong consensus here that mudflaps are the way to start and then I can make a decision on tires.

Thanks for the pointer to Jan's blog. It's actually one of the inspirations to the "everything" bike. With a dynamo hub, mudguards, and low trail, this ride is for sure my go to in any condition.

From the ride to the in-laws yesterday:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...7fc61ac9_c.jpg

Be careful riding fenders in true off road conditions (sticks) even with quick release front tabs, have seen wrecks caused by them. For road, the front fender keeps you dry, the rear is for your buddies, as above, the longer the flap on the front wheel the better and sizing up fender/narrower tire is a good idea if practical.

In addition to what’s been said, get some shoe covers. That would at least keep your feet dry.

After adding a mudflap to the front fenders and riding through the rain, I am more than happy to report that the drive train is clean as a bell.

Thanks for the tips here. I may still put a wider fender, but feel that it is worth waiting for the 74mm fenders that SIM Works will release soon.