79pmooney

This post is aimed at SKS and Planet Bike especially, but I welcome anyone else who wants to step into this void first.

My plea: as the title states, I want yellow road fenders I can put on a high end custom bike to ride Oregon's roads in the winter. Yellow because yellow is so visible. Yellow fenders because, as seen from behind, fenders are by far the most visible thing on a winter training bike. And I am talking real fenders; fenders you want on the bike for 70 mile January days that will keep the bike clean enough that not a lot of time has to be spent keeping it riding condition.

Visibility: In January, I am riding the shortest days of the year at a latitude north of the 45th parallel. On a long ride, any kind of mechanical will probably have me finishing at dusk. Western Oregon winters are famous (and rightly so) for their low grey skies. (Easy for me to adopt to. I spent enough of my life riding in southern Michigan and eastern Massachusetts seeing the same.) You fender manufactures seem to love to supply us riders with fenders of the two least visible colors for those conditions. Black. No emergency agency anywhere paints its vehicles black. Silver. I used to drive a silver car when I lived in Seattle. (Same sky.) I got very used to being invisible. Killed many a battery leaving my lights on in daytime.

These fenders should have: A full flap in front that comes down to inches off the road and is stiff enough to not push back when riding through a deep puddle. But - the flap should yield easily when the bike weight is on it - that WILL happen every time the front wheel is taken off or the bike is wheeled off a curb and the rider forgets. (I've had to ford some "rivers" running across roads. It rains here.) The fenders should have two sets of stays rear AND front to keep oscillation down. A good front flap creates turbulence that serves as a driver for oscillations. The fenders need real stiffness to keep the natural frequency high enough that this doesn't happen. I put real flaps on every fender I buy, either as new or in the case of the old Blummel fenders, after a year or so when the original wears out. I rarely get single stayed front fenders to not oscillate from tire contact to tire contact every time I get over a certain, not too high speed. And even if it doesn't start, the next bump will usually set it off. Riding no-hands, it always starts. A low hanging rear fender flap is very nice for anyone drafting. I usually ride alone, so that matters little. I do wheelie the bike every time I step out the door to ride, so a low, rigid fender or flap is a real drawback. I have never had the "Cascade" fenders with their long flexible flap but I think that could work well.

Incorporating a reflecting yellow into the lower portion of the rear fender would be a big additional plus. (I'd pay more for that. I put reflecting tape on my fenders there but getting that adhesive to stay stuck to plastic in the wet and with the convex bend and making look right on an expensive bike is hard.) A good interface with common "blinkie" lights for the rear fender, high enough to be safe from wheelie-ing the bike would be good.

Last, the reason you as a manufacturer should make these yellow fenders (and high quality ones at that): Look at that company that makes panniers out of rafting fabrics, Ortleib. Those panniers came in red, blue and black (I believe). A bike shop in Seattle asked them to make a run of panniers using the yellow fabric they were already using for rafting gear. They did. In 1999, I asked a local Portland Oregon bike shop if they carried or knew of yellow panniers. Well, they had heard that those Ortleibs existed. I asked them if they could get me a pair. They did and now yellow panniers are seen everywhere.

Fender manufactures, this is sales and money in your pocket. And a few of us will live longer lives. Yes, you will never know whose lives you save. Nor will we. Every time an approaching vehicle sees us riders, it's a non-event.

Thank you for reading this. (Fellow riders - tell your bike shop, contact the fender manufacturers.)

(I chose the paint for my custom to look good with those yellow fenders. It never occurred to me that in the 11 years I have been riding that bike,I would never see a pair to buy. I did see one white pair of road width fenders once. I bought and installed them on my winter fix gear. But I have two other bikes waiting for those yellow ones.)

Ben Jeffries (If you have questions, PM me or reply to this post so i get the E-mail alerting me.)

Rollfast

Go to the hardware store, also get acrylic overcoat and go crazy on it. Simplemente.


(I do my own fenders, striping too)

DrIsotope

You can paint polycarbonate with vinyl & fabric paint. A can of yellow Duplicolor can be had at most autoparts stores for about 7 bucks. Find a fender that fits all of your criteria, and paint it yellow. Other than Planet Bike Hardcore Hybrid fenders, I haven't seen any others than come in yellow.

Wildwood 

Support your locally sourced vendor:
In yellow:
Banana Taffy Stainless Steel Full Coverage Fender Set 700c x 46mm ? Portland Fender Company

DrIsotope

$124 for the fenders + $32 for the mudflaps. Calm down there, Portland.

Wildwood 

It's Portlandia, they take their foul weather transportation equipment seriously.
And they have been getting that foul weather a LOT this winter.
Good fenders on a Portland winter commuter bike in 2016/17 = PRICELESS

Rollfast

I paint and stripe my own fenders. Fortunately the weather around here has returned to Three Stooges Mode: No Moe Snow!


By the way, slush tends to get in there and freeze, at least it does for cars. Would think NO fenders better on a winter bike.

ThermionicScott 

Hey @79pmooney, something like this? https://www.amazon.com/Planet-Bike-H.../dp/B000U7LXJU

79pmooney

Yeah, sorta ... but that fender misses in a bunch of key areas:

It is not stiff enough because 1) they use a flexible plastic, 2) they cut the plastic at the brake mount and 3) they only use one set of stays or the front fender. Rear attachments are not not to the job either.

The front flap is a joke. If you put a real one on, the fender really isn't stiff enough and rattles tire hit to tire hit ad over 20 mph.

That fender is the so-called hybrid width, not a nice sleek road width and will requireosme artistic carving to get onto many road bikes, never mind that a lot of us roadies would prefer to look at a sleek fender on our expensive road machine.

I have those fenders on two bikes. Both have micky-mouse attempts to get the wobble to more manageable levels with mediocre success. I get reminded every time I get on those bikes that the fenders are 2nd class. I have white Planet Bike road width fenders on another bike. Better looks. All the rest of the issues remain (and the rattle is a little worse).

Planet Bike could do far better. The English Blummel fenders 50 years ago were better in all respects except they became brittle and broke. So, yes the Planet Bike fenders last longer. But the Blummels rode well for the first 5 years, something the Planet Bike fenders don't do new. (Planet Bike - if you are reading this, please assign one of your engineers the task of designing a fender that doesn't touch the tire. This isn't rocket science. I hate telling all who ask that they have to buy fenders from other countries because we cannot do it right. Then make that improved fender in a narrow and yellow option.)

Ben

79pmooney

But, painted fenders, after a year or two, will never look as good as colored plastic of the same age and abuse. And if you put a price on your time time and want a paint job roughly the quality of the custom bike it is going on, that's not going to be a cheap fender.

Ben

Kontact 

So when some company molds the yellow fenders of your heart's desire, are you going to repaint your bike when the yellows don't quite match?

79pmooney

The bike isn't yellow, it's red. No exact match required.

Ben