Originally Posted by
guadzilla
Thanks - I was thinking of getting the VO metal fenders simply cos I think they'll look great with the Surly, but this talk about them being a pain to mount has me concerned. How much of a pain?
I use the Surly primarily for trips, and these usually involve flights, so I have to take them off, put them on, rinse and repeat, quite often. Will it make me want to pull my hair out in frustration?
If you have to take fenders on/off repeatedly then you may want to stick with a pair of RaceBlade or SpeedEZ type fenders that just clip on and off with straps to the stays. Or invest in having S&S couplers installed so you can break your frame down without having to disassemble the fenders.
Steel fenders upon initial installation involve having to mark and drill things, so that's the big issue. Now, the VOs come pre-drilled at a couple points, but you'll still have to do a little bit of futzing about with a drill for things like the stay mounts, and the rear fender mount at the seat stay if you're bolting to a vertical eyelet on the bridge. I also drilled the front for a rack mount stabilizer bolt to the underside of my VO randonneur rack, to keep the front long edge of the fender from rattling.
The only thing I'd have done differently is to use 2 mounts on the fender itself to run the stays through instead of one; but with just one the fenders are plenty stable. It took me about an hour initially to get them set up.