Debs wrote:
Hold your horses - i'm not criticising the merits of having full mudguards - only the present design offerings, the time it takes to remove/put back on, and general practicality of fitment, often not having enough clearance between mudguard & tyre, and not integrating well with modern bicycle frames, or disc callipers, plus modern bikes generally seem to be becoming less tolerant of good design mudguard fitment.
I beg to differ,I find the present market offerings from the many manufacturers range from barely adequate(raceblades and some MTB offerings) to very good indeed such as SKS/Bluemels and a couple of others.
IMO the problems lie with tight clearance psuedo racing bikes built for impractical purposes and suspension systems on MTB's.
And it has to be said; full mudguard do get in the way at bike cleaning time, it would be appropriate to be able to have better designed mudguards that are purposely made to fit the frame with perfection, and have a easy quick release method, and very quick easy quick to put back on again
I've never yet felt the need to remove mudguards from any of my bikes to clean either the bike or the mudguards and I'm a bit particular on cleaning,nor ever felt a need for a quick release method of removing them as they stay on year round.
If I lived in California or southern europe I may have a different attitude but not in the UK.
Do I need to mention that all my bikes have mudguards with good effective mudflaps,or mention that I right rough stuff and MTB singletrack for the majority of my cycling .