Icycle

I have a Bruce Gordon BLT equipped with Bruce Gordon front and rear racks. I wanted to add front and rear fenders, so I bought a set of SKS fenders. Unfortunately, there seem to be some serious incompatibilities.

The SKS fenders come with mounting hardware that is designed to attach the stays to braze-ons on the front and rear dropouts. However, the BLT frame is equipped with only a single braze-on on each dropout that is currently occupied by the racks.

The Bruce Gordon racks themselves have fender mounting eyelets, but their placement is very far from the dropouts, which means they are completely incompatible with the mounting hardware supplied with the SKS fenders.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

supton

I have the Planet Bike fenders, not sure on the differences.

Can you just put both onto the same eyelet? I don't see why not, off-hand. put the rack on, perhaps secure it with three bolts (leave one dropout eyelet open). Install fenders, and put in that fourth bolt. Then remove the other eyelet bolt, put on the fender bits, and reinstall the bolt.

Alternatively, perhaps get some longer bolts, and cut the head off. Actually, I think you can get a thing called "set screws", which would look like a bolt but with a recessed Allen (or hex) opening on one end. Put the rack on, screw this setscrew in, not too far, then put on a nut. Install fenders and then add a second nut. Make sure the bolt isn't too far, otherwise it will hit the chain while on the smallest rear cog.

Icycle

I was hoping to find some way to use the nifty fender attachment points that Bruce provided for the specific purpose. But I guess I can just acquire some longer bolts and mount both the rack and fenders on the same eyelet at the dropouts.

dubes

I have SKS fenders mounted on my BG racks. It takes some time, and you do have to do some cutting and bending of the fender stays to get them to fit. But once installed, the fenders are very stable because of the short stays.

ken cummings

I had the same problem with my BLT and rear Gordon rack. I tried the one bolt for the rack and fender thing. Had it into the LBS for some work and it came back with the rear stay on the Planet Bike fender shortened and bolted to Bruce's special braze-on. This LBS is near his factory and sees enough of his bikes to know what to do. Later I told Bruce personally and he said. "Well, duh. I put only one hole in the rear drop out to keep it strong." He then gave me a free set of toe clips and straps because I had worn out his original set so quickly commuting on his bike.

Michel Gagnon

There are two solutions.

1. As Supton suggested, get longer bolts and mount the fenders and rack onto the same eyelets. That's more or less the standard procedure.

2. If you look closely at your racks, there are holes to attach the struts onto the racks. From the pictures on Bruce Gordon's website, both front and rear racks allows one to attach the struts onto the rack itself. There are two advantages with this setup:

– Struts are shorter, hence the fenders are much more stable
– For the front fender, the attachment point provides added safety: in the unlikely event that something jams into the fender, it will lift away from the tire rather than crumple into the fork. In a nutshell, you won't fly over the handlebars.

Icycle

Thanks everyone for your help and suggestions. I just finished installing the front fender. I ended up bending the struts by hand, and then trimming them down to fit with a metal file. The result looks great and feels much sturdier than SKS fenders that I have mounted normally on other bikes.

Icycle

I finally got around to installing the rear rack as well. The modifications to the struts were similar to what was required on the front rack: cut much short, and bent at a much more obtuse angle than normal. In fact, the angle was so large that the struts no longer lined up with the holes on the fixed bridges, so I couldn't use the bolts and nuts to attach the struts to the fenders. The simply pass through the top holes in the fixed bridges. However, given the much shorter strut lengths and the angles at which the struts pass through the holes, the whole thing feels very sturdy and stable. I'd be happy to post pictures if anyone is curious.

Eric630

Do you think you could post some photos of the back fender mounting? I have a Bruce Gordon BLT and the SKS fenders as well. Thanks