Originally Posted by
BCRider
It's welded correctly... or at least correctly for that company and that particular model of bike. I've seen a few MTB frames with the hole sitting vertical like that. I suspect that the designers or maybe the fabricating company wasn't thinking of us poor slobs that like to run with fenders.
Ironically, a lot of custom bikes built
for fenders all have these holes on both the chainstay and seatstay bridges radially aligned to the wheel. The idea is that you can eliminate the L-bracket and make the installation "clean". The bridges are also positioned to have an identical and appropriate bridge-to-axle distance so a good fender line is assured.