fender recommendations?
 

sorry if this has been asked a lot before, but i'm looking for a good full (or at least mostly full) set of fenders for a 700 frame. i have been having trouble finding much. i saw the raceblades, but since my frame has mounts i might as well use them. i also saw the freddy fenders ones, but i want to know what else is out there. any recommendations? thanks!

2008 SKS Race Blade

it all depends if you want to keep them on or remove them.
There are many pretty steel fenders out there, even some real nice wood ones.

You have the right idea looking towards proper fenders, especially for a commuter bike.

SKS chromoplastic fenders are pretty good. I have a set of P50s which I have been using for 18 months, they keep me free of road grime and don't squeak or rattle.

I'm new here so I'll throw in my $.02. I've been using these fenders:http://www.amazon.com/Commuter-Bicyc...6034656&sr=8-1. Yesterday riding home from work I had to go though a bunch of puddles (snow runoff) and I was dry and just a few spots hit the bike. Mine were $29.99 from a local shop (also branded Planet Bike I believe). Very easy to install.

Velo Orange makes aluminum fenders that are comparable in price to plastic.
I bought a set recently and really like them.

http://www.velo-orange.com/fenders.html

Pros:
* great coverage (very long and fairly wide). My feet definitely stay drier than with full-length SKS fenders.
* supposedly more durable than plastic (I've only had mine a couple months)
* look cool

Cons:
* a bit more work to install
* fairly wide, so not a great idea if your frame has tight clearance

SKS chromoplastic are the best. They have a safety release at the front and the hardware is all stainless steel.
I replace the metal chainstay mount with a small ziptie threaded through a 2mm hole. You can drill through the plastic very neatly without cracking. The fender is also strong enough to mount a rear lamp.

salmon super profil


http://www.cyclesdsalmon.com/boutique/BOUTIQUE.HTML

http://www.cyclesdsalmon.com/gbdemon1.html

http://www.cyclesdsalmon.com/gbmuscle3+.jpg

http://www.cyclesdsalmon.com/gbf1d13.jpghttp://www.cyclesdsalmon.com/gbf1d12.jpg

I really like the SKS for durability but Planet Bike's Cascadia provide much better coverage with their huge mudflaps. Their quality is about as good as SKS when it comes to durability.

Vélo-Orange onces seem pretty nice too, but I have never installed any.

I have SKS; they work fine for me. Here in Seattle, where we ride in the rain a lot, it looks to me like local bikers are split 50/50 between Planet Bike and SKS. Flip a coin.

I have Race Blades for my non-commuter bike. They are a poor substitute for full fenders. I use them on group rides to be nice to the people behind me (not that there is ever anyone back there...). I guess they give me confidence that I might not actually be the slowest person on the ride.

When I win the lottery I will put Honjos on one of my bikes, just so I can announce when I'm interviewed on TV that I spent my entire lottery fortune on a set of Honjos, professionally installed.

I have used both SKS and Freddy Fenders full coverage fenders.
I believe SKS edges out Freddy Fenders slightly but both are good.

My current commuter has raceblades. They are so so but it does not rain a heck of a lot around here.
Still, after my fixed gear is fixed or replaced I may see if I can jury rig a set of full fenders.

For bikes with discs,I prefer Freddy Hardcores because the individual struts are easier to get aound the brakes. Otherwise,I prefer Planet Bikes slightly because they're cheaper. Durability is excellent,I've had PB fenders on the back of my current and former polo bikes. They've taken plenty of hits,including getting folded up under itself,and all I've ever had to do is bend the struts back straight.

Planet Bike has good fenders with their Freddy and Cascadia lines. The Axiom Roadrunners are the only full fenders i've tried as of yet that i'd truly recommend staying away from.

I put SKS Commuter Fenders on my Trek 1200 this past weekend:

http://www.kc-bike.net/photo/Fendarrs.jpg

I posted my first impressions on Commute By Bike.

The one thing many commenters have bewailed is that the fenders don't go down "far enough" on the back. Far enough is relative, though. They keep all the grime off of me, and people who complain about the fender's length in the back believe that a fender's purpose is also to keep from throwing stuff onto the person behind you. I'm slow and no one's ever behind me, so this was a well-spent $32 in my opinion. I don't think I could find any that scrape the pavement behind my bike for that price.

Cascadias are fantastic. It's not just the mudflap size, but shape, the flap curves forward and around the tire. I can coast through standing water and my feet stay dry.

Planet Bike Cascadias...they have lots of coverage as others said and the company gives 25% to bike advocacy groups.

Yes, the shape is different too.

In my opinion, SKS needs to offer a huge mudflap like the Cascadia or they'll start losing sales. I had the old Freddy ATB with the regular mudflap and ordered the Cascadia mudflap for 5 bucks on their website to swap. The difference is night and day!

+1. I love these fenders. Company is awesome also. Like Dave, I live in a very rainy place...

That's pretty funny, but not at all true. Honjos are $79 at Velo Orange. That includes all the aluminum and stainless hardware required to mount the fenders. Yes, they are about $40 more than an SKS or a Planet Bike Cascadia, but Honjos tend to be slightly more durable and they look fantastic. $40 really doesn't go very far nowadays so putting that towards a nice set of fenders you can enjoy for a few years is something to consider. They are a b*tch to install correctly though, and they don't play nice with "euro-style" repairs stands such as the Park PRS-20 or the Minoura RSX.

Anyhow, if you order Honjos, consider ordering from Velo Orange. They have the extra long ones that don't require a mud flap to provide fantastic coverage (see attachment).

If you're not convinced that an extra $40 will buy you an extra bit of happiness, as a user of Planet Bike Cascadia fenders, I will echo that they're great because they're long enough (especially the front one), durable enough (for daily commutes), and easy enough to install (comes almost fully assembled). If you get them sized properly for your tires, you can really run through entire patches of water without getting much, if anything, on you wet.

Hi, why do you say we should stay away from these? From the looks of them they seem pretty good. But I've never used them.

I think the emergency release feature on the SKS full coverage fender is an important one. I have had occasion to see it in action once or twice, it works. I'm not sure if other brands have similar features.

Robert

Now I'm curious what could cause need for the emergency release.

thanks a lot for the replies guys. this bike is going to be dedicated to the rain, so there isn't a need for the fenders to come on and off. couple questions...

what's the difference between the planet bike cascadias and hardcores? i mean i see a few differences visually but how does that actually transfer to the road?

also what are some sources for finding sks chromoplastics? i see the planet bike fenders everywhere but not so much the sks. what kind of price do they run? i do like that they come in varying widths (according to their site)

Studded or semi-knobby tire that picks up a stick.

The SKS qr mount lets the front fender snap out of the mounting point instead of breaking the fender and/or stopping you dead in your tracks.

I've used the PB Freddy HC and the SKS P-series fenders, and I like them both for different reasons.

The PB Freddy HC were a softer plastic that made them less likely to get damaged if you leaned your bike wrong or bumped them putting it onto a rack (ask KT about that with his SKS fenders).

The SKS P-series are more stable in their mounting, but they are a more brittle plastic than the PB Freddies. I've been running P-45 fenders without issue for almost 800 miles now, and that's mixed snow/rain and very rough roads and some group rides where bike lay-downs at rest stops were common.

On both the PB and the SKS fenders, I put full after-market mudflaps. I used a piece of stairtread and some zipties on the PB fenders, and I bought some flexi-rubber flaps with my LBS' logo in reflective tape for the SKS fenders.

If you really want to go the classy route, then there's Honjo (aluminum) and Berthoud (stainless) fenders. They're heavier, and a pain in the behind to mount, but they look awesome and they're not going anywhere once you have them on.
Berthoud also makes a carbon fiber fender; it's ultralight, minimalist, and costs $230!

The last option is a removable style like the SKS Raceblade. Lighter, easy to remove on nice days when you don't want them there, but you do that at the sacrifice of full coverage.

I think it's the cascadia mudflap, which you can buy separately to put onto HCs (or even non PB fenders maybe) if you want/need to.