Alcanbrad

I recently fitted our travel tandem with gravel tires I had in my spares bin so we could ride on the local rail trail during this era of social distancing. I would like to fit fenders to keep the bike and me clean as there are often mucky sections to traverse. The bike is a circa 2012 Co-Mo Primera with a Wound-up Carbon fork. The fork is not drilled for a crown bolt nor does it have fender/rack eyelets. I am looking for recommendations for fenders (preferably full) that easily mount, or made to easily mount to such a fork. I need to remove the front wheel for transport so I am hoping for something that does not require removal of the quick release. I am also interested in what others have done to mount fenders in such a situation. I will not consider drilling the fork.

I realize clearance may be an issue as seen in the pictures and will entertain a smaller tire if required. My plan is to locate a suitable fender, then adapt it. I am fairly handy and have access to a 3D printer if I need to design and fashion something.

So what does the collective wisdom have to offer as for recommendations?

Thanks in advance and stay well!

New2Two

I had eyelets added to our WoundUp Duo2, but they were only on the legs. I believe it is the SKS Racermates (?) that have rubber straps to attach to the legs of your fork.

To attach to the crown, I cut the fender to fit behind the fork, got a rubber compression nut from the hardware store, sanded down the OD of the rubber compression plug so it fit inside the steer tube, and used the bracket from the fender to hold the fender the crown via a drilling a hole in the bracket and putting the compression screw through the bracket into the plug. When I get home I'll see if I can post photos of what I did.

surak

The SKS Speedrocker has some great reviews.

dabac

On occasion I’ve installed a Star Nut from below to act as an anchor point for a fender.
A common fix for fork legs and seatstays are P-clamps.

Alcanbrad

I understand what you did, very clever. I had not thought about that approach and went and checked and the steering tube is open so this is a possibility. thanks.

The steering tube opening is too small for standard star nut but this is great suggestion as well. I have used P-clamps in many different applications, they work well but I loath them astheticly. Though I might have to go that way.

Carbonfiberboy 

Put chafe tape under the P-clamps. You should have it under that zip tie, too. Under all zip ties. For sure a fender isn't going to fit between tire and fork. On tight fits like that, I end the fender behind the fork and zip tie it to the fork. Need some method of prevent fender.fork chafe.

Alcanbrad

:Looking around armed with the the suggestions above I am narrowing down to 2 possible choices: SKS Speedrockers and Planet Bike SpeedEZ XL's:



SKS Speedrocker

Planet Bike SpeedEZ

The Speedrocker looks like it is exactly what I want for the front wheel, however, in the rear, the fender does not appear to extend all the way down to the bottom bracket (which is something I want to keep the rear drive mech's clean). This end of the rear fender is extendable, however, I cannot find any specifications that say how extendable they are and the all the pictures show the rear fender ending about halfway up the seat tube as they appear to be targeted more to the aggressive/performance gravel frame geometry.

The SpeedEZ's meet the rear fender goals and I would likely have to cut the front to end just behind the fork as suggested above. Further, the spec. sheet says it is 45mm wide and is made for max tire sire of 35mm. My tires are 37mm which might be tight. I am not opposed to going slightly smaller on tires.

So both solutions are not ideal. I potentially could buy both and mix and match, but that is just expensive and we all know how us seniors care so much about how symmetric we look on a tandem .

Does anyone have any knowledge of the Speedrockers with respect to their ability to extend to the bottom bracket? Any experiences to relate with the SpeedEZ's?

Thanks.

Alcanbrad

I ended up going with the Speedrocker. My results as I expected: The front worked perfectly. The rear did not have enough clearance when installed as designed so I removed the seat stay clips, rotated the fender forward and drilled a hole and used a bolt to hold the fender to the seat stay bridge as seen in the picture below. This also achieved my desired for the fender to provide coverage all the way to the chain stay bridge.

We still picked up a bunch of crud on the front bottom braket so I will likely add a skirt to the back of the front fender to offer a little better coverage.




Need a little more fenderage to keep the crud off the bottom bracket.

surak

Nice adjustment. I saw another poster mentioned using the Ass-Saver ToeTector to extend the front coverage on his Speedrockers.

Alcanbrad

I couldn't find the Toe Tector from a seller in the US and with all the craziness with businesses being closed around the world, I did not want to take an $8 risk so I looked for something similar. I found the SKS X-Long spoiler and decided to try and adapt it to my fender. I was pleasantly surprised to find the the mating end of the flap has a shaped pocked that the Speedrocker fender fits in cleanly and the flap comes with a button screw that all I needed to do was to drill a hole in the existing fender to attach. Very clean installation. Now, they closed all the parks and trails in the state to we don't have the opportunity to try this out. Hopefully someday soon.

I am working on 3d modeling one or more pieces to augment the rear fender around the bottom bracket. I'll circle back when that is done. Stay well everyone.

Spangen7628

mo

lichtgrau

It just came into my mind to post this on-topic picture for "Fenders for forks with no eyelets": Finally I found these fixtures for "bottle holders". In their original use they were made for bikes without a preparation to fasten a bottle holder on the frame.
Since two years they work perfectly on our suspension fork to hold the front fender in place...