Fifty five degrees
Raining but my crack is dry
I've got full fenders
--Seattle Haiku, May 2003
I'm a big fan of fenders All my bikes have fender eyelets and clearance for fenders. And half of them have fenders on today. It does tend to rain in Seattle and even when it's not raining the roads are wet a lot of the time. Deep down inside I think I'm even a bit superstitious about the weather and being prepared for it. The day you take your rear fender off is the day the clouds roll in out of nowhere. And the day you spend 38 minutes adjusting and installing your new full fenders before work in the morning is the day it'll be clear and sunny. The same goes for not wanting to haul your rain jacket around in your bag all day. The weather man knows nothing.
Those little black brackets that go on the front of SKS fender mounts...I used to throw those away. I thought they were a waste and clunky. Then one day while riding through Seattle Center a piece of wood somehow got pulled up under my front fender, wedged in and locked up my wheel. I launched over the handlebars before I even realized what happened. After that I started using those handy SKS quick release clips on the front.
I buy used fenders sometimes at Recycled Cycles. I spray paint the silver ones black. If I find black ones, I usually don't spray paint them silver. I have one rear fender that I bought 10 years ago. It's hanging on by a thread, a zip tie, two kinds of tape and a binder clip. But it's still functional.
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