Medic Zero

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Thoughts?

Darth Lefty 

It's probably less useless than the footlong ones that go under the fork. My BMW motorcycle had a fender sort of like this on the back where it was otherwise pretending to be a dirt bike.

corrado33

I don't know, in theory they may work. The majority of the water coming off of my tires flies into the fender at about the points where those fenders are. Then it just harmlessly drip down to the ground. But then again, I also often see a stream of water shooting off of the top of my front tire, so maybe I'm wrong. These fenders WOULD top your immediate feet from getting splashed, but it'd just throw the water somewhere else to splash you.

BobbyG

That rear looks like it would still allow dirt and grit to shoot forward onto the rider. The front may shoot a stream up to the handlebars.

rhm

Ugly, for sure, but I have definitely seen fenders that were more useless. "Shorties" are totally lame from a functional standpoint.

Medic Zero

Damn, can't see the image. I'm curious...

Medic Zero

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I'd like to see fenders more useless than these.

My take:

1) water from where the rear fender isn't and should be (full coverage area) is going to pour onto your BB and into your shoes as your feet pass through the rearmost part of their arc.

2) Fenders DO have an aerodynamic component. Now I'm the kind of guy who rides upright on an old steel MTB with multiple lights and half the accessories you can imagine, so I'm no weight weenie, but those sure look like inefficient air scoops (read air drag brakes) to me. The forward terminus of both fenders is about the very worst place for this aspect.

3) The stays. Single point of attachment? Forked stay close together for a ways as it approaches its mount? That's going to be trouble.

4) Your gonna get a rooster tail off the front tire at speed. It'll be interesting and maybe amusing the first few times you see the water shoot straight up in the hair, appear to hang there for a moment and then smack you in the face. The first few times.

and at least one other thing I'm forgetting at the moment.

I'd love to see this in a wind tunnel.

Darth Lefty 

Sorry, the problem was at my end. Look up R1200GS. There are several different parts that serve in sequence around the wheel as fender or wheel well liner or mudguard but the last one hangs off the back like this.

Route 66

They just look like they were mounted incorrectly to me.

Medic Zero

Ah thanks, I see it now! You remind I have seen those on some motorbikes and scratched my head and wondered if they did anything. Keep sticks from going 'round maybe? Didn't figure they'd be much help with water.

Darth Lefty 

I feel like short fenders for bikes are designed/marketed based not on where the water or gunk actually goes, but where people visualize it going. For example: you want a fender that goes over the rear of the tire because it can throw water over your head and into your face. But the image you have of someone riding in the mud is of the stripe up his back and therefore you see short fenders that only cover the top of the tire.

This fender on the rear will not do that, but it looks like it will dump on your legs and shoes. The front one seems pretty well placed.

Medic Zero

See:

4) Your gonna get a rooster tail off the front tire at speed. It'll be interesting and maybe amusing the first few times you see the water shoot straight up in the hair, appear to hang there for a moment and then smack you in the face. The first few times.

Archwhorides 

The lines and details on this Rogue bike look nice, but the tech bits (fenders, light concept, etc) don't seem like they will be as functional. .

Darth Lefty 

Think of it as an discontinuous fender. This piece will take water thrown up by the wheel and shoot it forward where it will hit the wheel well liner. There are some other features under there that keep the spray from getting too much on the shock. It's a BMW so they spent a lot of design effort to successfully make a very complicated thing that could have been simple.

Darth Lefty 

Still, like I said, seems better than the ones that go six inches ahead and behind the fork.

wphamilton

I agree, I think that the back fender would be the bigger problem. I've had the front like that and it's ok if you're moving slowly, but the back would get your legs soaked IMO

tjspiel

I have a set of SKS Raceblades. The front fender on the Raceblades is very much like that one. In reality with a smooth tire (knobbies might be different), most of the water has already been thrown off the tire by the time it has rotated around to where that fender ends. You end up with a fine mist being blown back at you. Considering it's probably already raining, it's not a big deal.

Maybe you'd get a full blown rooster tail shooting up behind the fork if you were going through 2 feet of water at 50 mph. Again, knobbies might carry more water through the rotation of the tire.

The rear fender of a Raceblade has more coverage than the rear fender shown. You do get a small of amount of spray getting thrown against the seat post and front derailleur, - not really much on your legs and feet, or the bottom bracket really. I'm not saying that it's great, just saying that your legs and feet aren't going to get soaked from it.

That particular bike doesn't have a front derailleur or a chain so I don't think it will suffer much. In fact, the disc brakes might be better off since there is less water and grit dripping/spraying down on them from the fenders above. There might have been more thought put into the design then one would think at first glance.

cyccommute 

They offer a bit more coverage than the bikini fender I saw in Amsterdam





That is an actual product. I saw them at Veloswap in Denver this year. I may have to get this one for my new Brooks Swift that I got at Veloswap.

Medic Zero

I get it, after you mentioned it, I remember seeing so other fender type bits that operated in conjunction with it.

acidfast7

BMW Motorad did it to reduce weight. It is optimised with a EU-spec license plate.

corrado33

I have raceblades as well, and I found them to be a bit inadequate. I hated having the front tire essentially spit water at me all of the time, and the water coming off of the mini fender in the back and falling direction onto my feet/chainrings. As luck would have it, my first rear fender broke, so I contacted SKS to get a replacement. They sent me an entire new set of SKS's minus the front large fender (since mine wasn't broken. Everything else was included, including hardware.

So I took my old broken fender, epoxied it to the bottom of my front fender to extend it by 2-3 inches, then put the mudflap on the bottom of that. It works MUCH better now. Sure, it's a bit less stable, but it works great! I also extended the mini fender in the back, bolting it to the frame at the bottom. That fender also works a heck of a lot better now! Why they didn't make those full length fenders, I have no idea...

acidfast7

edit: I should note that weight is a significant concern when the chassis configuration shown in the previous image is employed. This is not as significant when a standard chassis is employed.

SlowJoeCrow

From experience, the section of rear bicycle fender between the seat stay bridge and the chain stay bridge, the bit conspicuously missing on the Rogue concept catches a lot of stuff. If you ride this in the rain the seat tube, bottom bracket an dthe backs of the rider's legs are going to soaked and dirty.
From what I have read about this bike it's quite possible that the self proclaimed engineer looked at the little fender on the back of a BMW GS and thought that's cool without realizing that it was actually part of a multi-piece system. Farther to the motorcycle angle, BMW could have put a full coverage "hugger" style fender on the swingarm like you see on some sport bikes, but I'm guessing they were concerned about mud and debris clearance for the surprisingly large number of people who actually do ride their R1200GS off road.

e0richt

this has been my experience with my raceblades as well... I am normally a fair weather commuter so don't get caught out in the rain often...

Bandera

Those are actually a good design for the tiny minority who take their GS off pavement.
The design catches the mud clumps thrown off of the rooster tailing rear tire and allows it slide harmlessly off w/o jamming the rear wheel/fender or engulfing the rider in arcing clods.

-Bandera