Cycling UK Forum

Don't drill mudguards - a welding rod or something of similar width heated on the gas jet will do a neater job without shattering the plastic. (Don't get caught using the wife's knitting needles! )
If you buy pre-packed meat from a supermarket it comes on a black plastic tray. Very handy for cutting out mudflaps. You can do it with the kitchen scissors.

thirdcrank wrote:cycleruk

Some bikes - apparently including glueman's - have vertical threaded holes in the fork crown and seatstay bridge for direct fitting of mudguards. This is a good way of maximising the often limited clearance for guards on modern frames.

Thankyou thirdcrank.
Understand now.
I have heard of this but not come across it yet.
Cheers.

I fitted guards to my old bike and it was the most awful job to do. I'd imagined that it would be a doddle....well I was wrong! Worth doing in the end but it was a dreadful job none the less.

this thread has given me a rosey glow inside.
Fitting mudguards is one of the few jobs that I find goes really easily and I enjoy. It's nice to know that I can do at least one thing that annoys others.

As to the plastic stay caps. I don't bother. I leave the stays full length and then bend them over into a U shape (but the other way up obviously). That means that when I decide that I actually wanted bigger tyres I don't have to buy new stays 'cos the old ones can just be rebent to lengthen.

Si wrote:I leave the stays full length and then bend them over into a U shape

And use a single pannier I shouldn't wonder.

glueman wrote:

Si wrote:I leave the stays full length and then bend them over into a U shape

And use a single pannier I shouldn't wonder.

One has been known to. That my change at the forthcoming lidl sale if one can obtain a matching left side pannier.

Mick F wrote:

NukeThemAll wrote:Yes, I love working on bikes. Always have, always will

Ditto!

I often wonder how many actual bits there are on a bike. Right down to ball bearings, screws, nuts and washers, spokes, nipples, cones, cups, spindles, springs, pins, ratchets, ............

One day, when I'm really bored, I'm going to strip mine down - completely! and count them.
(I wonder if I should pull my chain apart too. 115 links of outer and inner plates, rivets, bushes ............. )

I recall this appearing as a quiz question on the lines of which everyday object has at least 1500 separate parts; I answered a bicycle and it turned out to be right

It could be worse, I bought a set of own branded mudguards from Halfords. The stays have to fitted into a plastic clip which then connects to the mudguard. These have to be first cut to length, apparently the designer didn't give much thought to how to determine the right length, needless to say none f mine are the same length and a bit of judicious bending as needed to prevent rubbing on the tire. The instructions said that the stays could be cut by scoring the metal and bending the stay backwards and forwards until it snaps. In the end I had to use a pair of fencing pliers, designed to cut high tensile steel fencing wire, and a great deal of effort.

Any way I got them on rode over a rough bit of road and the stays popped out of the clip holding it to the guard. I stopped reattached the clip thinking I hadn't attached it correctly. This and other clips came loose repeatedly over the next couple of weeks.

I wished I bought SKS, they would have been so much easier and no more expensive

All these issues derive from the fact people care so much about how the damned things look now. Cyclists used to have the unprotected jagged stays poking out a few inches or bent over with a pair of pliers. Another ruse was to fit them to the end of the stay then put a kink (nobody quite got an omega loop) or a dog leg in the wire.

When the chromoplastic broke, as it tended to do eventually, riders either went with short guards or mottled together bits of aluminium can as a splint. We're just too fussy with our bikes these days and mudguards have caught the bug.

i think weve moved on from those days glueman. In those days, bikes were seen as cheap transport. In fact, thinking of it, my utility bike has lots of different stays and a fairy liquid bottle repair, but I wouldnt have this on any decent machine. A seasoned cyclist's bike is now either for transport, or for leisure. Thats we have several. It seems futile to spend circa £800 on a new frame with ornate lugwork and paint, for it to be finished off with crude mudguards. The increase in affluence, coupled with consumerism mean that we hve taken a stance of increased standards with our purchases. your statement seems to hanker after the good ol' days that my dad refers to when he says "I dunno why everyone wants a 3/4 bed house. In our days, we had one up, one down and shared the living room with a sheep and a pig, and we survived" he's not actually wrong, its just that weve moved on.

sirmy wrote:I wished I bought SKS, they would have been so much easier and no more expensive

Having spent a whole day trying to get my SKS guards to fit properly and look right I would say 'less difficult' rather than 'so much easier'!

It's surely more about health and safety than mere appearances. Those ends of stays can be really sharp if simply trimmed with croppers and I've jabbed my hand a time or two when helping other people with their (less carefully assembled) bikes.

I think a neatly cut to length and filed smooth stay actually looks neater. These new plastic covers let a less carefully trimmed stay merely look okay, but more importantly they cover the sharp protruding end.

As for affluence and appearances: I'm glad to hear that even pigman is not so much of a "Hyacinth Bucket" that he cannot bear to keep a hack bike! Like him I have a couple of bikes that look nice and get brand new mudguards when they break, and others that don't. These get "new" mudguards that are pop-rivetted together from the remains of old ones. And of course I keep all the fittings. Occasionally a friend will lose a mudgaurd stay bolt, and I can always supply a replacement.

Oh how I laugh.....

I recenty fitted guards with the same stupid end caps. Took one look at the end caps, laughed my socks off then cut the 'protector' bit of the end of the integrated unit, then just glued it onto the end of the choped stays.

Then had to spend an hour making brackets to get the mudguard close enough to a 23mm tyre to be effective on a frame (surly LHT) with huge wheel clearances.

NewHorizon wrote:

sirmy wrote:I wished I bought SKS, they would have been so much easier and no more expensive

Having spent a whole day trying to get my SKS guards to fit properly and look right I would say 'less difficult' rather than 'so much easier'!

SKS have changed their design so that you now have to cut their stays to the right length as well. Does give a neater appearance, but it takes longer to fit them and cutting the stays is a bit of a pain.