Cycling UK Forum

So I've really taken to cycling to work, and indeed round London, I think I've only caught the tube a couple of times since March. t was great in our crazy hot summer, but I'm not feeling ready for winter...

I'm riding a Triban 500, I've got 28mm Continental Gator tyres on it. (I upgraded from 23mm as I was sick of punctures and the local bike shop could see I was desperate...) And no mudguards.

Wet stopping is a bit scary. And I'm sick of getting soaked with spray.

I don't think I can squeeze mudguards between the frame and the wheels, it looks pretty tight? Photo to follow in next post...

Does upgrading the brake shoes to Kool Stop make a worthwhile difference?

Do I need a new bike? I don't really want one...

Thanks in advance.

Hope these work!

Yes to kool stop salmons.

Looks pretty tight. you might get guards like these raceblades longs which have flat metal bits for under the brakes but they're only designed for 25mm tyres.

https://www.sks-germany.com/en/products ... ong-black/

Narrower tyres would allow guards. 25mm might do it but 23 would give you better clearance.

If it were me I would be looking for a different bike, maybe second hand. For commuting I would now favour disc brakes simply to cut out rim wear. And I would want the bike to be made for mudguards and a rear rack.

Gatorskins are a bit 'tall' simply because the tread is fairly thick. I wouldn't even try fitting mudguards in the gap you have at present; small clearances lead to nasty accidents. It might work OK with 25mm tyres though.

The raceblade mudguards or other clip-ons will do a reasonable job of keeping you drier (much better than nothing) but you will get almost as much muck in the brake pivots etc as without. Raceblade type mudguards often don't protect the front derailleur from the plume of crud off the rear wheel either.

Bikes tend to suffer in the winter especially when they start gritting the roads; transmission life is about half, rims wear faster, scratches in paint on alloy frames soon turn into nasty furry messes and parts like the brakes and front mech tend to seize up just for fun. So you should expect to have to do more maintenance if you want to keep your bike in good shape through the winter.

Very many cyclists end up with a second 'winter' bike for such use; sometimes it is a demoted old 'main' bike, other times it is one specifically bought/built for the hard miles.

cheers

How about selling it and buying an rc520 disc.

Better brakes and mudguard clearance...

Cheers James

Jamesh wrote:How about selling it and buying an rc520 disc.

Better brakes and mudguard clearance...

Cheers James

Or, not buy a flawed braking system/new bike for a ton of money and just clean the rims, scrub the pads or replace them and put some mudguards on

To the Op, if the brakes are 57mm then you may well be able to get guards underneath, if they are 49mm then buying new calipers may well enable you to fit guards over the 28mm tyres.
Additionally clean the braking surfaces of the wheels and give the pads a clean/rough up with sandpaper. Buy some new pads, fibrax are fine, you don't need kool stops or any other fancy/expensive pads.

Regards braking in the wet, what is scary exactly? Are you braking too late, are the pads not grabbing the rim very much, have you adjusted the pads correctly, cleaned the rims (as above) etc etc?
learning how to brake correctly not just in winter time but any time of year is important, having your brakes clean and set up properly is an essential part of that.
There's loads of advice regards that subject matter, a disc braked bike is not the solution and you don't need a new bike!

No chance of fitting a proper mudguard under there! Too tight
You'd squeeze raceblades under there, or giant defy mudgaurds
It's possible your brakes lack power because the pivots in the brake mechanism/cables are full of crud from road spray. Do they return freely? Is there slack at the cable/lever? If so they need cleaned, lubricated and the pivots adjusted, and possibly new cables. Park has a decent guide to adjusting dual pivots at the latter part of this article.
https://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-he ... ke-service
Kool stop and swiss stop make the best rim brake pads in my experience
If I was you I'd think about getting a bike with disc brakes and proper mudguard clearance. Genesis Croix de Fer, Specialized Sequoia

As stated above Giant Defy mudguards may fit and they are decently long and if used with a long mudflap offer very good protection. Nothing wrong with rim brakes if properly set up. The limiting factor in the wet is the grip of the tyres. That's not to say that disc brakes don't have potential advantages, notably no rim wear. The main issue of using a bike for commuting through the winter is keeping on top of the maintenance which means first and foremost regular cleaning (this coming from someone who commutes year round and hates cleaning his bikes). You are to encouraged to continue cycling through the winter and with good mudguards and the right attire it's not as daunting as the non-cycling public and mass media would have everyone think.

the Giant Defy mudguards (aka 'speedshield') have metal rails either side of the tyre where the mudguard passes under the brakes;



this allows them to fit where others may not.

However they are not quite as rigid as a conventional mudguard (the rivets near the brakes can act as swivels), there are no stay releases on the front (I suppose you could add SKS secu-clips) and they don't protect the brakes from corrosive road spray.

As I mentioned upthread the front derailleur is also not well protected;



I can see why they are made they way they are; however there is no real means of adjusting the distance between the mount onto the seat tube and the brake mount; this means that on some frames the rear mudguard won't fit without modification because the seat tube mount actually fouls the front derailleur.

There is also a Mk2 version in which both the front and rear mudguard are interrupted;



However I have not see these in the flesh, so the brackets at the dropouts may or may not have stay release function built in. I would suppose that both front and rear mudguards will require mounting to the AK brake fitting, which normally requires (or at least work best) if the AK fittings are replaced with 'fender nuts' or similar.

cheers

Brucey wrote:the Giant Defy mudguards (aka 'speedshield') have metal rails either side of the tyre where the mudguard passes under the brakes...

Had to laugh as have just spent the last few weeks grappling with this idea and have re-created by using tin-snips to separate the two pieces of the 'guard and lengths of perforated stainless steel strip (seen here), rivetting them together - didn't occur to me to look to see if they were already out there...

I note with interest that (not with the Mk2 although this does not seem to be widely available) there is still a metal bridge between the rear brake and the tyre; this may be where the clearance will be unavoidably tight(est) with these mudguards. Quite possibly there is a better way of making an arrangement of this sort.

It occurs to me that a length of mudguard stay could be used each side to pass the brake area, and instead of being riveted, it could be bound (using glue and thread perhaps) to the mudguard edge.

The 'overloop' bracket seen in the Mk2 version is very similar to that used on some versions of the 'cycles D.Salmon' aluminium mudguards which were made in the 1980s (until about 2010 I think).



cheers

The utility cyclist wrote:
To the Op, if the brakes are 57mm then you may well be able to get guards underneath, if they are 49mm then buying new calipers may well enable you to fit guards over the 28mm tyres.

I don't get that. Whatever the callipers, the crucial measurement is the one from the brake bridge hole to the top surface of the tyre, which will be the same whatever callipers you put in there. If short reach callipers are what the bike was made for, putting longer (mid) reach callipers in there would just have you ramming the blocks up to the top of the slot, with the interfering top section of the callipers in exactly the same place as the short reach callipers they replace.

Not sure if it’s the same frame, but my Triban 520 is fine with 25mm Gatorskins and mudguards, but 28mm tyres just catch on the guards. I don’t think you need a new bike, perhaps just size down to 25s. I don’t have any problem stopping with rim brakes either.

Gators aren’t the best for grip, so I’m currently using the GP4000s from my summer bike on the Triban, though they seem to be out of stock everywhere, having been replaced by the GP5000. I’ve had good experiences with Vitoria Rubino Pro’s on my Triban too.

I have used the Giant Defy mudguards mentioned in Brucey’s post above. They aren’t very rigid and have a tendency to “bounce” as you ride along, contacting the tyre. I only fitted the rear, as I don’t trust single stay mudguards on the front.

re pwa's comment; yes, apart from any shape variation in the caliper which may affect clearance slightly, that scheme would work best if the 'new calipers' were attached to a 'new frameset' too....

[edit; IIRC there are two distinctly different versions of the triban frame; one with reasonably generous clearances and the other (cheaper I think) version which has less room for mudguards.]

cheers