Watch another rider in the rain and note where the water flys off the wheels and at what angle. You will quickly realize that partial fenders are basically worthless. Only a full fender, that comes down at least 90 degrees down from the top of the rear wheel, will effectively prevent water from spraying onto your back. The fender has to come down ever further than 90 degrees to prevent spraying a following cyclist. Likewise, the front fender has to come down much more than 90 degrees to prevent spray from hitting your shoes and drivetrain. In these cases, long mud flaps do the trick.

I tried RaceBlades for a season. They were slightly better than useless. Mihlbach has it dead right: a rain bike requires full fenders, not to protect you from the rain, but to protect you and your bike from the filthy spray that comes off your tires. Even if you don't have fender bosses, you can fit full fenders on virtually any bike with some p-clips and zipties.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y18...trek660003.jpg

That is a nicely set up fg commuter/rainbike. Nice steel frameset with road(ish) geometry, good full fender coverage, front and rear brake, with hoods and drop bars, two bottle cages, clipless pedals, reasonable saddle-bar drop, and no hipster bull****.

I mostly agree. Front fender must drop pretty low to keep spray off of your drivetrain. IME experience though, a seatpost mounted rear fender can be sufficient to keep the spray off of your back if it extends far enough rearward. It may not help the guy behind you at all however.

Thanks! It's a '89 Trek 660. I wanted a fixed gear ROAD bike, not a stupid wannabe track bike. It looks like the bike manufacturers are finally figuring this out and there are good choices now, but at the time, your best bet was to find a good old steel road frame.

Yes, its actually pretty basic geometry. As long as the fender extends to the steepest imaginary line that intersects your backside and the very back of your rear wheel, it will basically protect you.

I have a very similar bike, build around an old Centurion frame. Unfortunately I left it with my parents to ride when I visit. While I have several other FGs, none of them are really set up for commuting or rain riding. My current bad-weather commuter bike is a Long Haul Trucker, which is really great for handling loads, but I do miss the days of riding my sleek fendered FG road bike in the rain.

I ran some on my bike back in the early 90s, but kept breaking them, only getting a season or two use.
My backscratcher's going on 10 years now and is easy to switch from bike to bike. Front derailers are cheep enough and fenders probably make things slightly worse for rear derailers. I do have to repack the BB a lot more than the fendered years, however.

I suppose since I have a shorter commute these days, don't lock up to parking meters a couple times a day, close the bar down then throw the bike in a taxi's trunk anymore full fenders would last me longer, I might get a set this winter.

These are the pants I wear for my 20 minute commutes. I wear 'em with hi-top boots when it's wet.

You lost me here.

You got me. :roflmao2:

Or maybe even more minimal would be simply... not being.

Killing oneself is very eco-friendly.

complicated this minimalism is....

I think you need a second bicycle, for rainy days.

More bikes -- problem solved!

Originally Posted by LesterOfPuppets View Post
Front derailers are cheep enough and fenders probably make things slightly worse for rear derailers.

As far as additional drivetrain destruction from going fenderless is concerned, my local shop has NOS front derailers for $8, this is of no consequence to the OP, however. I've noticed that having a full fender on the rear causes lots of gritty water to drip off the edge of the fender all over the cogs and rear derailer.

I have never noticed water dripping from my fender to the derailleur, unless riding through lots and lots of water. Usually, the spray from the tire runs along the underside of the fender and drips off the front and back, although I am certain that the RD is not immune to road spray even with fenders.

At any rate, without fenders you are spraying the same stuff directly onto the chain, derailleurs, chainrings, pedals, and cogs, thus introducing the same abrasives to the same components, but in much greater quantities with much higher and more forceful velocities.

Actually his argument makes sense. With no fender, guck flies outward, away from the wheel; with a fender; some of it is contained and may be redirected inward towards the center of the wheel.

+1. My fenders don't drip off the sides.

If I get fenders again this winter, I'll take some video.

I'm just trying to present both sides. I've found locking bike to parking meters/racks a few times a day and then tossing bike in the trunk totally destroys fenders, making them less cost effective than backscratchers. Backscratchers are WAY easier to swap between bike than full fenders too.

On the negative, I have to repack my BB a lot riding without a full front fender. My pedals seem to be doing fine. I can get decent pedals for $20, so I don't mind if I have to replace them every 15 years or so.

My whole rear wheel area seems to get nastier with a rear fender. All that crap on the braking surface, black brake dust slurry combining with road grime just makes a mess of cogs and, let's just say almost everything rear-triangle related except the rear brake caliper.

If I didn't mention it, I have a short commute, 3.8 miles each way, similar mileage to the OP's. If I was still doing my 15 mile commute I did back in the day, I'd have to have full fenders.

This is completely and utterly misguided. When riding on a wet surface, the wheel splashes some water to the side, regardless of whether a fender is there or not. Water that actually adheres to the wheel (via surface tension) does not fly outward. The centrifugal force of the spinning wheel obviously directs the water to the midline of the tire where it is flung directly off the tire from the midline of the wheel. The spray hits you and your bike. Thats why you get the stripe in the center of your back. When the front wheel is turned slightly to the left, the back spray from your front wheel is aimed right at your DT. With a fender, the spray hits the underside of the fender and it either drips back onto the tire and is flung again, or the surface tension holds it to the fender and it runs along the undersurface until it drips off the front or back. Watch your fenders carefully when you ride. Most of the water drips off the ends and only a tiny amount (if any) ever drips off the sides. What's worse, a few drops, or forcefully spraying your DT with road grime?

5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, in an area with several rainy days. Yes I do recall a vast majority of slurry getting spit out on the pavement right behind the bottom bracket, not all of it, however. Hmm, right behind the bottom bracket, then where's it go?

Nevertheless, it's likely quite pointless to try to talk someone into fenders when they're just not their style.

Here's my snow-day setup. Move the backscratcher from road bike to MTB, put the studded tire on front and let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3129/...d2c0176f_b.jpg

Its worth noting that knobbies fling water slightly differently than a slick tire because the knobs prevent the water from running to the midline of the tire. I don't ride on the road much with MTB tires, but I've noticed they fling water in a more scattered pattern, but haven't paid much attention to the specifics. The tread could effect the angle that water is actually flung from the tire, but thats just a hypothesis.

For sure, you get more spray in the face with knobbed tires. Road tires are a death trap in the snow and ice, however. Here's my rainy day setup:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3230/...42c4891e_b.jpg

I agree that the side spray from the front wheel is probably not a problem for the drive train, and that much (but not all) of the centrifugal spray off the front wheel that might otherwise hit the chain, is probably contained by a full front fender. A little bit might fly back from below the fender and get on the chain rings. So a front fender offers some protection to the drive train.

For the rear wheel, it's possible that some of the side spray rises steeply enough to reach the lower chain run, and no fender will help here. So the question boils down to what happens to the centrifugal spray off the rear wheel? Will the fender in some cases act like a half pipe and divert some of that centrifugal spray right back back down parallel to the wheel and onto the rear derailleur? You say no, I say maybe.

Water shooting out the side of the fender (halfpipe style)is unlikely with a regular arched fender unless there was really a lot of water being forecefully flung onto the fender (see disclaimer below). Normally, if the tire and fender and correctly aligned, the high-velocity tire spray should initially be flung toward the midline of the fender. Once that happens, water can do three things. (1) It can fall back into the tire and be sprayed up again, (2) it can run to the front or back end of the fender and harmlessly drip off, (3) or it can drip off the sides of the fender onto the hub, derailleur etc.

Above, the claim was made that this side runoff (#3) is potentially worse for the cassette, hub and RD than simply going fenderless. I was thinking about this riding home today and I noticed my fenders (planet bike) have a lip running along the sides of the fender that prevents this. The lip acts as a gutter. Water running to the edge of the fender is diverted by the lip and runs toward the front or back end of the fender. I don't know if other fenders have the same lip, but it seems that well-designed fenders would have such a lip. It certainly works....at least, in the thousands of miles of wet road riding with planet bike fenders I have never seen water spraying or dripping from the sides of the fenders down onto the hub, cassette, or derailleur, nor have I ever seen any evidence of it in the form of dirty residues on said components. However, whenever the roads are wet, water is always conspicuously dripping off the ends of the fenders, which tells me the fender is doing its job correctly. Its possible other fenders don't work as well, either because they lack the lip or they generate less surface tension.

Note: A clip-on "backscratcher" will not work this way. Water will simply drip off of it...it is meant to protect you and not the bike.

(Disclaimer): In a torential downpour with flooded roads, all bets are off of course.. The amount of water being kicked up by the tires exceeds the ability of the fenders to divert water. At any rate, with or without fenders, you're bike is going to be exposed to road water in severe rain.

oh no, time to get a full chainguard

Holy thread resurrection Batman! and to the day, uncanny!

novara headwind pants. they're snug but not tight like lycra. I wouldn't wear jeans under them though.

http://www.rei.com/product/815145/no...ike-pants-mens

over jeans you can wear thin rain pants