Have I gone too soon?
Comments
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Have you seen them on deep section wheels.....looks really bad and I'd rather get wet. Riders behind, if they choose to do so can shift a few degrees to avoid the spray. It's a choice.0
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To be honest they are a pain on road bikes. I just don't bother and rarely ride in driving rain. On a mountain bike it is very different and I use the Clip on type.0
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I can never understand why people think mudguards are a pain. Eg my Crud Roadracer fitted Ribble. Here's how it works - I wheel it out of the house, get on it, ride off somewhere. I can't see how the mudguards can manage to be a pain in that sequence of events. All they do is help keep me dry, my bike clean and the rider behind me from getting a load of my spray in their face. If that isn't happening for other people then they must be doing something wrong!Faster than a tent.......0
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Agreed.Rolf F wrote:I can never understand why people think mudguards are a pain. Eg my Crud Roadracer fitted Ribble. Here's how it works - I wheel it out of the house, get on it, ride off somewhere. I can't see how the mudguards can manage to be a pain in that sequence of events. All they do is help keep me dry, my bike clean and the rider behind me from getting a load of my spray in their face. If that isn't happening for other people then they must be doing something wrong!
Of course you'll get wet riding in the rain regardless of mudguards. That argument is facile and intentionally misses the point. The front mudguard prevents water thrown off the front tyre from spraying straight into your face and onto the bottom of your shoes. The rear mudguard prevents water and grit being sprayed up your ass and back. A full rear mudguard also eliminates wheel spray hitting the rider behind you.
If you have not witnessed these improvements then your mudguards were too short or somehow badly installed. If you think these improvements are trivial then you don't cycle in truly bad weather or you like being cold, dirty and uncomfortable.
The only significant hassle involved with having mudguards is if you need to remove the front wheel to put the bike in the car. With a fixed front mudguard you may still have a problem. Other than that I can't see how they make life any harder.
It seems to me that your dismissal of mudguards is driven entirely by the fact you don't like the appearance or think they're unfashionable and are looking for a justification not to use them. Your arguments really don't hold up to scrutiny.
Having said all that, I didn't use mudguards this winter. The set I used the last 2 winters got damaged in storage last year and I never got around to replacing them. I regretted that every time I went out in the wet.
Next winter the mudguards will be back on the bike.0 -
And when it's not raining but the roads are wet, in other words most of the time in the winter, they keep you completely dry. More importantly they keep a lot muck of the bike. If you can use them without problems why wouldn't you ?Smarter than the average bear.0
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This is why they are important in the winter IMO. I've ridden most weekends all winter, without any significant rain, but the roads were always wet, especially judging by the amount of water streaming out the bottom of my guards.0
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Very true. I forgot to include that.antfly wrote:And when it's not raining but the roads are wet, in other words most of the time in the winter, they keep you completely dry. More importantly they keep a lot muck of the bike. If you can use them without problems why wouldn't you ?
Incidentally, I've a second bike on the way so I'll probably put the mudguards on the current bike as a permanent fixture for use in wet weather summer or winter.0 -
keef66 wrote:Well i rode a sportive last year in Norfolk with a couple of colleagues. After about 15 miles we were joined by a cataclysmic cloudburst which stayed with us for the next 30 miles. The roads were turned into rivers of orange slurry, much of it of animal origin. I had mudguards but neither of my chums did
By the finish everyone was soaked to the skin, but I wasn't sporting a layer of topsoil and pig$hit like my friends.
"I remember once I had a big warm furry jacket on,it was freezing cold, -20. I remember looking over at the frozen dead bodies of my friends who just had t shirts on and laughed at how foolish they had been"
No offence ,couldn't resist.
Exactly where was this sportive...Name that pig farm 0 -
rayjay wrote:keef66 wrote:Well i rode a sportive last year in Norfolk with a couple of colleagues. After about 15 miles we were joined by a cataclysmic cloudburst which stayed with us for the next 30 miles. The roads were turned into rivers of orange slurry, much of it of animal origin. I had mudguards but neither of my chums did
By the finish everyone was soaked to the skin, but I wasn't sporting a layer of topsoil and pig$hit like my friends.
"I remember once I had a big warm furry jacket on,it was freezing cold, -20. I remember looking over at the frozen dead bodies of my friends who just had t shirts on and laughed at how foolish they had been"
No offence ,couldn't resist.
Exactly where was this sportive...Name that pig farm
It was the Wymondham 50. The pig farms were too numerous to mention. The pig slurry must have come with a fair helping of flint shards; never seen so many punctures on a sportive.
If there's one thing worse than being soaked to the skin and covered in pig$hit it's being soaked to the skin, covered in pig$hit while trying to fix a puncture.0 -
Are we all just saying whether we do or don't now?
I don't use mudguards. I don't see the point. They don't keep my bike clean enough for me not to wash it, so I may aswell wash it all. I don't care about spray because I wash my jerseys & bibs after every use too (as should all of you, really, as a sweaty soiled chamois is bad for your sensitive parts).
Some of my riding buddies use mudguards. We've never had a fight about it.0
