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Something to Do (Part 12)

Posted by Dutchman Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Fenders

As I am running 700x32 tires, I opted to purchase some SKS P-45 fenders. The P-35 would be a tight fit, and I would be unable to go up to a larger size tire in the future. I first installed the front fender. This was actually done in coordination with the front low-rider rack installation, as they would both be using the same eyelet for mounting at the bottom of the fork (more on the rack installation later).
I used the already attached fork crown bracket, with a bolt through the brake hole in the crown. I'm probably fortunate in that the bracket was just sufficient in length to properly position the fender above my wheel. Next I checked the length of the fender supports that position the rear of the fender. These were a little too long, so I used a Kawasaki (Dremel) tool to cut off about 3/4 inches from each end. This positioned the fender with even space around the tire from front to rear. The fender supports plug into a small plastic block that allows them to release in case a stick or some other refuse were to be pulled up by the tire into the fender. Supposedly, these would help keep you from being thrown over the handlebars in a sudden stop when an obstruction hits the supports. I hope I don't find out if this design works well. An unfortunate side affect of using this safety feature is that when sharing a dropout eyelet with a rack, you end up with kind of a long bolt, which may be less than optimal for a heavy load in your front panniers.

The rear fender connects to the bridge between the rear chain stays. The fenders come with a bracket that clips on to the bridge, but in my case, the fender was a little too far from the tire, which means the rear end of the fender would be too close to the tire. I removed the clip and used a bolt going directly into the threaded hole in the bridge. To get the fender spaced correctly in relationship to the tire, I added a couple of small spacers (see photo). A sliding "X" bracket is included by SKS, that allows connection of the fender to the seatstay bridge. This bracket was a little too short, so I used the Kawasaki to grind out the slot an extra few millimeters. The rear supports were cut down, and attached to the fender and rear dropout eyelets. As can be seen in the photo, I used the lower eyelets for the fender and the upper eyelets will be the connection point for the rear rack.


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I'm a middle aged divorced father living with my two sons. We like to canoe, bicycle, fish, camp, play baseball, and spend money when we want and where we want, without permission from anybody. HA!

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