Originally Posted by
Blue Order
Fenders will also keep your back dry if it's not raining, but the roads are still wet. That's why I said unless you only ride when the roads are dry, fenders are almost essential. Can you ride without them on a wet road? Sure. Will you get a stripe of dirty road water the length of your back? Yep.
But you're right, it all depends on how often it rains, whether you ride when the roads are wet, and whether you care about keeping the road water off of you.
What's a wet road?
Colorado's humidity is so low that we don't often have roads staying wet for more than a few minutes after a rain storm. We even have the phenomenon of rain falling from the sky and missing the ground
It's called virga.