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This weather has gotten me thinking again about an mtb with full length guards.
I've always assumed that anything beyond steady XC riding will have than rattling all over the place and dying a premature death. I've got pretty decent guards (SKS Al 56) with good clearance on my all-road/gravel bike and a still get a fair bit of wobbling and tyre contact when hitting rough tracks at speed. So I've never bothered with them for proper offroad stuff.
Have I got this all wrong?
Rather depends on the guards, and terrain.
Here's mine. Full metal guards and stays. They stay on all year round. Nothing massively gnar, but bumpy, rooty single track and all weather farm tracks mixed in with the road. For 'proper XC' on a MTB, I don't think I'd use full guards.
It's all about how well set up they are and the mount point design ime. I have these on a bike year-round - https://www.evanscycles.com/pinnacle-650b-mudguard-set-EV327735
Current set's done 2x 700km Alpine road and gravel track tours, a 1500km+ road tour, 2 years of local road and byway use with a few Ridgeway out-back trips, pretty high mileage all in all. A few jammed sticks. Broke one rear set before these as I only used one rear stay, flexed it too much at the SS bridge as expected. Still, took a while to do that. Would be totally confident in a set on my 29er assuming the stays were supporting the guard properly.
As above, full length guards on my commuter
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[url= https://flic.kr/p/tGdHZ9 ]New commuter[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/n_b_t/ ]Notoriously Bad Typist[/url], on Flickr
I'm not talking about riding the Leogang WC DH course, but I've ridden plenty of the trails I'd ride on my MTB on that (at slightly slower speeds perhaps) and clocked up the thick end of 6000km and the guards have lasted. Snapped the seatstay bridge mount and replaced it. lost one of the widget things that keep the front stays in place after a twig caused it to come out - but elastic bands have served admirably in the stead of me pulling my finger out and getting the proper replacement part
Thanks 🙂
And that's some nice artistic bending you've done on the front stays nbt 🙂
The problem with 29ers/700 wheels is that with the guards secured at the chainstay & seatstay bridges there's a hell of a lot of mudguard slopping about 'secured' by twangy steel rods to the dropouts.
It's probably not an option for a lot of mountain bike (although it might be useful for gravel/backpacking bikes) but I've had a couple of setups with a pannier rack fitted where a spare [url= https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/mudguards/35mm-sks-stainless-steel-rear-mudguard-bridge-each/ ]mudguard bridge[/url] could be fitted to the light mount at the back of the rack making everything rock solid.
Cheers, it was done by the excellent @fatboyjon from my super LBS, Bicycle Smithy
50mm SKS Chromoplastics on my commuter cope well enough on mild trailcentre and singletrack. They occasionally skuff the tread on really bumpy bits. Had this set up for quite a few years now and haven't broken a mudguard so far.
Hi,
My SKS Chromoplastic seen me through Potato Alley and Cutgate OK. Sure thing that was mincing but I managed OK.
One bracket snapped just 2 weeks ago, but that is after 4 years of rough and tumble service.
Bike doing around 7-8k miles a year of commuting, bridleway bimbling and everything between as well as sometimes more than above...
Cheers!
I.
It's not so much the roughness as the mud and sticks that get them. Either a stick will rip them off and send you OTB if unlucky or they don't have a frangible link in the stay. Or mud will just clog them.
Actually breaking them only ever happens in a crash (or a bad case of one of the above).
I posted this a few months back. Not a sound has been hard since and they've had some proper stick on the descents. 😀
Or mud will just clog them.
Yeah, this is why they're usually rubbish when it's wet off-road. Need a good inch of space over the tyre and the stay to guard fittings that are all external to minimise clogs.
This was my 26" rigid commuter. I used to take it up and down the steps with the mudguards rattling around a lot on the way down. There was only enough clearance on the rear for a 26x2.1" with a fast rolling tread pattern without knobbly bits for cornering. That was more the fault of the frame though.
Much more clearance on the front so a Slaughter 26x2.3" with side knobblies for cornering fitted well. No bridge on the rigid forks so one of those bung things for a toppeak defender or something went into the steerer with a strip of aluminium with a right-angle to fix it. P-clips on the forks. The front flapped around more. After three or maybe even four years some of fixings needed the rivets drilling out as they had worn through the guard so I replaced them with small nuts & bolts and more thin aluminium strip for a bit of extra support. Gone 650b commuter now and haven't bothered with mudguards for it yet (only a short commute so not too bad). Wouldn't want them on a bike around a trail centre.
SKS Chromoplastics
On the commuter I've done a bit of rough stuff, my limits are lower than those of the guards (running Marathon Supremes at fairly high pressure so my limits were quite low).
Other mudguards (including other SKS guards) are more flexy. These will flex about a bit if you ride over bumpy stuff one handed, but I try to avoid that anyway for other reasons!
I do kind of agree that the stays are not optimised, but they work better than they have much of a right to. The less good guards had slightly thinner stays FWIW.