20" aluminium mudguards

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Mick F
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by Mick F »

Brucey wrote:even a 1/4" spacer to the chainstay brace would help, and I bet the wheel would still come out provided you removed the RH track nut from the hub. Apologies if this is obvious but you ought to have a shallow-headed screw (pref csk into a larger washer) at that point, otherwise the screw head fouls the tyre.

The other thing that helps is if the mudguard bridge isn't under the seatstay brace; this takes up a few mm that could be better employed getting the mudguard higher up.

cheers

All done.
The mudguard SS clamp is as high as it will go and is mounted "backwards" so the clamp body is fwd of the bridge.

If the chainstay bridge was higher, the mudguard would be further away from the wheel. There is room on the brake calliper to lower the blocks.

I say agin, the design of the brake bridge is wrong. It's too low. If I ever have the frame refurbished, I'd get them to raise the bridge maybe 10mm.
Mick F. Cornwall
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Mick F
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by Mick F »

I'll see if I can photograph the wheel as far forward as it will go.
Maybe not until later or even tomorrow.
Mick F. Cornwall
pete75
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by pete75 »

Mick F wrote:
pete75 wrote:
Mick F wrote:Off topic here! :D

£3.70 a pint plus Mrs Mick F on other drinks - sometime beer, sometimes a large vodka and tonic. Maybe £7.50 a round?
Maybe three rounds? That's £22.50. Two evenings is £45, so I exaggerate somewhat.

What about four rounds on two evenings in the week?
4 rounds x twice in the week = 8 x £7.50 = £60
Exaggerate a bit to get £90 maybe, but it only needs three visits ........ and already done three pubs this week - Wednesday, Friday and today.

Adds up dunnit. :wink:


£3.70 a pint????? :shock:
Yep.
Cheaper in some pubs locally.

Do you think £3.70 is too expensive?
£2odd in Wetherspoon's of course.


Yep it is expensive - or rather a big markup. I can buy a 72 pint barrel of 5% beer for about 70 quid including vat. Call it a quid a pint. A pub landlord should get it for less. A 270% mark up is a lot. Sam Smith's pubs all seem to charge £2 a pint for Old Brewery bitter which is a good pint and some of their beers are as low as £1.60 a pint.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
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Mick F
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by Mick F »

Sam Smith's are unique.
They own all their own pubs and brew their own beer. All their products are their own including down to tonic water.
No wonder they can sell stuff cheaper.
Mick F. Cornwall
Brucey
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by Brucey »

Mick F wrote:
Brucey wrote:even a 1/4" spacer to the chainstay brace would help, and I bet the wheel would still come out provided you removed the RH track nut from the hub. Apologies if this is obvious but you ought to have a shallow-headed screw (pref csk into a larger washer) at that point, otherwise the screw head fouls the tyre.

The other thing that helps is if the mudguard bridge isn't under the seatstay brace; this takes up a few mm that could be better employed getting the mudguard higher up.

cheers

All done.....



the mudguard is closest to the tyre about 4" behind the rear brake. It is forced into that shape because there is not a thick enough spacer between the chainstay brace and the mudguard. The axle looks as if it needs to come about 1/2" forwards to let the wheel out but the mudguard is more like 1" away from the tyre in the region of the chainstay brace. I think you could quite easily improve that installation.

FWIW there is a Velo Orange product which is a spring-loaded bolt and nylock for installation of the rear mudguard.
Image

one of the ways of using it is so that when the wheel is to be removed, the mudguard and bolt can be deflected forwards by the wheel to let the wheel out. This can make for neater mudguards even with slotted forward facing dropouts.

cheers
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Mick F
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by Mick F »

Back to mudguards! :lol:
Thanks again Brucey.
I'll be experimenting shortly and have a good look-see.
I'll be doing a bit of Moulton Maintenance, and I'll photograph the rear wheel just at the end of the dropouts and how it fits with respect to the mudguard.

A thought struck me earlier. The bike gets FILTHY even though it has mudguards ...................... so, what would be the difference if I just did away with them?

Even with mudguards, my legs get splattered and my shoes too. The frame and gears get caked as well as the front forks and suspension, let alone the wheels and hubs and brakes. Absolutely filthy and the bike needs washing after every ride.

Do away with the mudguards?
I'll remove them and have an experiment out on the roads this week.
Mick F. Cornwall
Brucey
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by Brucey »

little-known fact; at any given road speed there is likely to be more crud thrown off smaller wheels.

The reason is that the centripetal force required to keep crud attached to the tyres is inversely proportional to wheel size.

F= (m/r) v^2

m and v are constant with wheel size leaving F proportional to 1/r

If you think you are getting mucky now, just wait until you remove the mudguards.... :shock:

cheers
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
All looks a bit of a mess, I would think about making the rear mudguard in two parts.
Joining Either side of the rear brake.
Make a U shaped bracket to fix on the brake Boss, Over or under the brake, fix mudguards to either end of bracket.
Aluminium or stainless I think will be even more prone to cracking.
I know you want silver so going to a PVC type mudguard (black?) Would not be ideal but you wouldn’t get any more cracked mudguards.
Modifying the frames are little bit drastic, for now just make a two-part fabricated rear gaurd.

Front mudguard needs more stays as said.
NA Thinks Just End 2 End Return + Bivvy - Some day Soon I hope
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Mick F
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by Mick F »

Brucey wrote:If you think you are getting mucky now, just wait until you remove the mudguards.... :shock:
:lol: :lol:
Done it.

Ironic really, but the bike is FAR easier to clean with the mudguards off. Therefore - my theory goes - that if I have to clean the bike after every ride, it may as well be even more in need of cleaning. Also, if it's easier to clean, there's a double bonus. However, I may regret taking them off. :lol:

A couple of photographs.
Hopefully they are clear enough.
The rear wheel touches the mudguard bolt at the chainstay bridge as it comes out. Putting a half-inch spacer would indeed make the mudguard fit better - it would need a full half-inch - but I would need to deflate the tyre to get the wheel out.
IMG_0090.jpg
IMG_0091.jpg
Mick F. Cornwall
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Mick F
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by Mick F »

Sans Mudguards! :D
IMG_0101.jpg



I did some measuring.
The centre of the rear brake bridge is 20mm off the tyre. Not far enough IMHO.
The chainstay bridge rear edge (not counting bolt head) is 30mm off the tyre, but the rear wheel needs to move 28mm forwards to drop out from the dropouts.
2mm lee-way only.

A simple way of improving the clearance for the wheel coming out, would be to remove the tracknuts, washers and non-turn washers completely to leave only the axle. This would indeed improve matters a bit, but not much and not enough.

Main problem, is the brake bridge being too low. Splitting the mudguard would help of course.

BTW, 406/28 tyres.
25mm would help a bit for wheel removal, but it's the rear brake bridge that is the culprit.
Mick F. Cornwall
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
Vertical dropouts?
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Mick F
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by Mick F »

That would work.
The rear triangle would need modifying, then a respray etc.

The whole frame assembly has some foibles in design but mainly it's the rear triangle with the issues. The rest of the pieces are ok.

Rear triangle needs:
The brake bridge raising.
The suspension hinge is delicate and maintenance hungry. Needs total redesign.
Vertical dropouts fitting.
The dropout width is a compromise between 130mm OLN and 135mm OLN ........... in that it is 132.5mm OLN.

This last point seems fair enough, but the bike comes with a 130mm QR rear hub, and the QR won't work as a "quick" release as you have to undo the RH nut to release the frame tension. :lol:
If you used a 135mm hub, you'd have great difficulty removing and replacing the rear wheel as the triangle is short and very very stiff indeed.

This got right up my nose, so I squeezed the dropouts in to make them 130mm. Problem instantly solved.
original.jpg
Mick F. Cornwall
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
I never really thought about it before, most MTB’s have vertical dropouts, my touring bike has vertical drops, my racing bike has angled dropouts and I have to compress tire against the front changer to remove the rear wheel in with 23’s.
Okay so single speed bikes have angled dropouts.
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Brucey
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by Brucey »

I'd just fit the spacer and live with the fact that the wheel only goes in and out with the tyre a bit soft. Everything else is complicated/expensive/makes more problems.

BTW some of the parts that suffer with no mudguards

-FD seizes up
- seat pin seizes
- rear brake seizes
- lower race of headset gets knackered
- BB sees more crud than normal
- pedals see more crud than normal
- chain gets dirtier at about x5 the rate
- tie rod nut and kingpin on separable moultons goes rusty
- all the space frame tubes get covered in mud and are fiddly to clean
- front suspension links get dirtier
- front suspension plunger gets covered in mud (remember APB models have a rubber boot but not all TSRs do)
- rear suspension parts (including URT bushing) get covered in crud from all directions

you gotta love cleaning/maintaining your moulton to run without mudguards in the weather....

FWIW if your rear mudguard were fitted properly and you had a proper length front mudflap everything would stay a lot cleaner.

Most moultons have slotted dropouts so that the frames are versatile and can run an IGH without a tensioner.

cheers
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Mick F
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Re: 20" aluminium mudguards

Post by Mick F »

All you say is correct, I'm sure, Brucey but some of your list is true for all bikes without mudguards.

The chain cannot get dirtier at 5x the rate as it needs cleaning almost every ride anyway. The bottom run of the chain as it enters the rear mech is only an inch off the road surface. Mudguards wouldn't help at all no matter how good they were.

I've never had such a dirty bike. Even the pedals get manky - good job they are Speedplay Frogs. (Highly recommended BTW)

Tie rod bolt is SS and the knurled nut is Alu.

Apart from all this, I'm a leisure cyclist cycling for pleasure. I pick my days and my routes. Recent months, I've been exploring the hills and lanes of deepest darkest Cornwall and the roads are manky and dirty and some with water running. Not rained for over a week with no rain on the horizon either.

If I took the "normal" roads, the bike wouldn't get so manky. I plan on a ride tomorrow - without the mudguards to see how it feels. I'll be on normal local roads that I know well and they will be clean and dry. I reckon that the bike will feel wonderful and I expect it to go faster too.

I'm going to try to fit the rear mudguard later this week and see if it will bend into a constant radius by using spacers and a longer bolt at the chainstay bridge. Fitting and removing the wheel will be difficult.
Mick F. Cornwall
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