cdoan20

I want to take off the plastic coverings on crank and freewheel. Im just not sure if it would be bad if I did. Do these coverings even have any use?

CACycling

The clear plastic guards have a purpose. The front to keep your pants cuff from being sucked into the chain ring and the rear to keep the rear derailuer out of the spokes. The front isn't needed if you do something else to keep your cuffs away and the rear isn't needed as long as your RD is properly adjusted. I don't have either on any of my bikes. The rear will require removing the freewheel/cassette to take it off (unless you just try to crack the plastic and take it off in pieces).

cyclist2000

I only have the spoke protector on the bikes that I purchased as complete bikes and leave them on til they break and become annoying

BCRider

The key is that the rear derailleur needs to be checked and kept in adjustment if you're going to remove the spoke protector. If for some reason you let it get out of adjustment or if a stick or pebble causes the chain to fall off from the big sprocket and down into the gap between the freewheel and the spokes it WILL do a good job of ripping and bending all the spokes on that side of the wheel. I used to remove the protectors all the time thinking that they looked dorky. But that one time a chain did slip off and blow up the entire wheel I felt like the dork. Now I put "dork disc" spoke protectors on all my bikes and don't care what folks think about them or me.

By all means remove the front protector if you don't mind using tight fitting riding clothing all the time or tucking your pants into your sock. But you may want to leave the rear protector in place so that it can do its job by catching the chain "just in case".