Fender fun…

This neat old Land Shark was in recently for fenders. Originally, it was just going to get the strap-on fenders front and rear because there was no clearance under the brake calipers for any type of fender. The owner is a hard-core commuter. The strap-on fenders are pretty inadequate if you are riding in any type of rain. They don’t wrap far enough down the front tire to stop any spray from heading back to your feet and the rear one only goes up to the brake caliper again, letting all the spray soak your feet.

I remembered seeing some photos of a wooden fender installation that used a rack strap to bridge across the brake caliper and connect two halves of the fender to produce a full-coverage fender. Hey, I can do that.

Because you can’t bridge across the front brake and there were no eyelets on the dropout, I used the rear Planet Bike strap-on fender in front and anchored it to the Sheldon Nut that replaced the stock brake caliper nut. The rear fender was a Planet Bike full coverage fender that I cut a section out where the brake caliper would be and then formed a rear rack mounting strap into a bridge to which I attached the fender.

There were no rear dropout eyelets so I used a flat head bolt that fit perfectly into the dropout cut-out and allowed me to use a nut to secure the fender struts. The flat head bolt was flush with the dropout on the drive side so there would be no issue with chain contact.

Got it all mocked up, bounced the bike around to make sure the fenders didn’t rattle against the tires, and then loctited all the bolts as I made the final tightening. Solid.

Tune-up with new cables, chain, bar tape and this rig is ready for a winter of commuting.