Full fenders with rim brakes and road calipers
 

I have a newly acquired rim brake bike with regular road style brake calipers. It currently has 25mm tires installed, with around 10mm of clearance between a 25mm tire and the brake caliper, and about 5mm of clearance between the tires and rear seat stays on each side. The front tire has more clearance than the rear. I'd love to bump up to 28mm tires on this bike, which would squeeze that rear seat stay clearance down to around 3mm on each side and maybe drop the brake caliper clearance down to around 8mm. I haven't tried this yet, but assuming it'll fit based on my observed clearances.

I am wondering if/how I could attach full-length fenders (mud guards for the non-USA crowd) to this bike? My bike has eyelets for mounting, and I've installed full fenders on disc brake frames before and understand how they attach, but I'm not sure how full-length fenders work with rim brakes. Do the fenders slide between the caliper and tire? Any idea how much room these take up and how that would affect available clearance for tires?

I've tried googling this, but most photos online show bikes with touring style cantilever brakes, or v-brakes. I can't find any good photos of full fenders on traditional road caliper rim brake bikes and am wondering if anyone has examples or suggestions on how this works.

Thanks.

Yes, older bikes tend to fit fenders better than newer bikes/frames.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...13ea76405f.jpg

Many newer frames leave little room for fenders/mudgaurds. It is on a bike or frame by frame basis. I had a Trek 1000 that I liked however, the clerances were so tight that wouldn't fit wider tires let alone tires and fenders. If it is a "racy" geometry it could be that it won't fit.

These are Plantet Bike Cascadia feners. They can made to have a pretty tight fender line. I showed a picture of this bike becuse of the tight fender to tire clearance I was able to achive. But of couse that comes with it's own perils. Sticks can get caught. My bike stays cleaner with fenders though.

I ran full fenders on a Gunnar Sport with 28mm tires. 32mm+ would fit w/o fenders. But the calipers were longer reach than your normal short reach road. The fenders take up quite a bit of space, both height and width. And yes, they have to go between the calipers and tire. I don't think there is any possibility of full fenders and 25mm tires on the bike as described.

Regular fenders - no. There are specialty fenders designed for short reach road bike brakes

It isn't hard to cut the fenders and simply install River City Bicycles' Reacharound Fender Brackets. ($15) I'm guessing most modern bikes will also need Sheldon Fender Nuts. ($15.99) This will give you a fender that is simply deleted at the fork crown and brake bridge and now extends a touch farther forward and back (both a plus if you and those behind you staying dry and clean is important). It sounds like that would leave those areas of the bike a mess but it doesn't. Seems that muddy water is traveling fast enough that most just shoots forward to where it would go anyway.

Portland, River City's home, has enough of those Reacharounds out there that they area completely proven product.

https://www.rivercitybicycles.com/pr...ckets-4486.htm
https://problemsolversbike.com/produ...on-fender-nuts

I just installed 28mm tires to see how they would fit. Turns out they fit great, but it seems like my expectations for 28s + full fenders may not be realistic. I don't think I'm willing to ride 25mm just to fit fenders, so I'll have to look into some other options - maybe a clip-on type of design that avoids the brake areas and provides some-but-not-full coverage.

Is this basically the same design?
https://www.rei.com/product/102249/s...ong-fender-set

These look like a solid option. I think I'll swing by my LBS to see if they sell anything similar or have other suggestions.

Based on the provided info, it’s impossible to answer anthing with certainty here other than the basic question of where the fenders go, which is, yes, between the tire and the brake calipers. Other than that, the clearances do sound tight, but I’d bet there’s a full coverage (or nearly full; depends on definitions) fender that would work.

Personally, I’m a big fan of the Crud RoadRacer Mk3 guards, both because they’re simple and light, but also because they’re easily removed/installed. I’ve been running them for nearly 9 years, I think, and the preceeding model for years before that. They’re among the slimmest fitting fenders out there, so if anything is going to fit, I’d wager it’s RR Mk3s.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...7fb9147ca.jpeg
Crud RoadRacer Mk3 on Kinesis Racelight 4S with Panaracer GravelKing 28 slicks

That looks like an SKS designed answer incorporating the River City concept if not their hardware. (The River City brackets mean you can simply use the fenders you have. Granted, the saw cut you take to them is permanent.) My bike, Jessica J (pictured in my avatar photo) has my home made version of the River City rear bracket. It has the additional challenge of needing clearance for a full 2 inches of wheel fore and aft to accommodate the fix gear hub travel so stiffness was a much bigger issue. My rearmost bracket is a hunk of stiff steel!

These look great, and based on the review video I found on Youtube it looks like they're easily cut/customizable to fit just about anything.

Just ordered a set - thanks.

Oh! Well I hope they work out! They are really adjustable, so provided the seatstays are wide enough for the DuoTec mounts to get good purchase, you should be good.

Post a pic once you’ve got ‘em on!

I was going to suggest the Crud Roadracers, but I see we've worked out that solution already :)

+1 for Crud but mine are the older version. Not very quick to install/remove. But yeah, 25mm with fenders, 27mm tires without - that was my compromise.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...f976f8cc7d.jpg

Wow, you’ve still got the “long tail” option for the rear! I kept ripping mine off every time I popped the bike up on the rear wheel to walk it in somewhere. I’ve since decided that I don’t care, because something is better than nothing, and absolutely nothing is the level of consideration most of my clubmates give to fender courtesy.

chaadster yes I absolutely hate how the rear tail drags when I'm wheeling it vertically through my cars in the garage! Both the rear and front tails have come off at least once - I'm on my last set of spare tails and nylon nuts. I'm assuming they've fixed the design with the newer versions. Functionally it won't matter much but it triggers the OCD in me when I lose a tail or screw. I will say I enjoy the bike much more with the fenders gone, but they've gotten me thru this past winter pretty well.

Yeah, the fender lengths are fixed now— performance does not suffer— and all but one screw and nut (connecting the rear halves) are gone, too, so the Mk3 is a significant improvement over the previous iterations. The RoadRacer is a great product, really a “best in class” product.

*I may have a used set of Mk2's with all parts still included sitting on my parts shelf if anyone has an interest for the cost of postage in the US.

I added some Fenders to my backup bike.... a 2013 Trek 1.1. Cool to see bikes with fenders.........

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...2b5d95f264.jpg