Originally Posted by
agmetal
I want to put modern fenders on one of my old bikes, which has 650a wheels. All of the options I've seen are for mountain bike 26" or 700c. Which would be the better option?
The 26" Planet Bike ones with adjustable rods for mounting should do fine for your A's which as said by others don't normally run really wide tires. They have a good bit of range of adjustment. Width wise, I use them for Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires at 26" x 1 3/4" (which is a tall and very robust tire, but not terribly wide) and it fits and looks good...visually sort of looks like a smaller 650B roll.
As always; putting off the shelf fenders on most any bike will require the do-er to spend some time sorting cats and tuning the mounts. Not atypical to need to bend a few things, go fetch a different length bolt, or get a Sheldon Bolt, etc., to get it all just right. For the adjustable rod mounts, you can end up with the rods sticking up out of the top quite a bit which I feel is unsightly, dangerous, and easy to get snagged on. After I sort the cats and have given it a trial run, I mark the length, tag them and then take them off to be cut to length and to coin the tops a bit with a file before assembling them for final use.
Hope that helps.
/Kerry