On the way to work today my front fender self-destructed with a loud *crack!* It broke into about 10 pieces, driving the little metal tounge on the bracket on the fork into my tire. Luckily I was ridding with 700x45 studded Innovas and it didn't pierce the tire. It was the style of fender that attaches to the fork rack mounts.

Has anyone ever had this happen? I don't think the studs were rubbing on the fender, I would have heard it. And yes, it was pissing down rain.

I have had a couple incidents of partial fender destruction caused by the tire picking up a stick & carrying it into the fender. On one occaision, the stick caught on the bottom rear of the front fender & rolled it up until it jammed against the stays making a very effective brake that brought me to an immediate halt. The plastic fender broke into several pieces when I tried to unroll it. This would have been much worse except I was riding uphill at only about 8MPH at the time. The Esge fenders now have a breakaway feature that should prevent this type of accident. Don

I thought about that, but I was in the city with no sticks. I thought it could have been a bolt, but I didn't see or find anything.

What was the temperature?

If the air temperature is below freezing, and if you are riding on a main road with some traffic. This happens....

The bike all cools well below freezing, the road is not below freezing because the cars rolling over it keep it from freezing. The road has water on it. As the water is lifted up by your tire and hits you fender it becomes ice. Eventually the ice is so thick that it jams the wheel,or ice falls off the fenders, or jams and breaks the fender. It's like when the cars have ice formed around the wheels and the wheels hit the ice.

Did you have ice forming on the spokes or anything on the bike facing forward? If you did that's probably what happened. High clearance motocross style fenders can help with this. I have a winter bike set up just for this problem. I have a photo of it.

I had a bike with new fenders and knobby tires. I hit the fender with my toe and pushed the fender into the tire, same result.

It was +7C. Terrible weather really. I've had a bunch of Presta valves seperate from the tube in cold weather though. One was while I was sitting in the LBS talking to the wrench. The bike had been sitting against the wall for about 45 minutes. We just looked at each other really surprised. It was quite cold that day.

I think you're on to something with the toe theory. I was wearing big boots today, and turning with one foot out of my rat trap. Didn't think of that.

When it happened to me I was turning a little, my toe pushed the fender sideways into the tire. One of the tire knobs grabbed the fender stay, or the bracket for it. I was actually going slowly too.

Plastic fenders used to get brittle and crack, but the Esge style chromoplastic ones are indestructable. That is one reason they need the safety quick release. I have actuated the release once when I caught up some wire and I think it saved me from a spill.