If you are a "fair weather" cyclist, you don't need fenders, but if you are a serious cyclist, and don't live in a desert climate, you really should have at least one bicycle with fenders.

Fenders make a tremendous difference when you are riding roads that are wet from drizzle, recent rain, or snowmelt.

In a hard rain, you may become wet with clean rain from above, but fenders will protect your body and bicycle from the mud and sand kicked up from dirty puddles and rivulets. The British use the word "mudguards". In the early days of the bicycle when horses were common, that word onlybegan to describe the advantage of fenders!

Rainproof clothing completes the picture of the well-equipped wet-weather cyclist. A rain cape -- and if you need to keep your hair dry, a helmet cover -- allow free ventilation and maximum comfort. A jacket of Gore-Tex™ or other breathable fabric also can do the job, though it can get sweaty and hot in a warm rain. A jacket with a hood, or a conventional poncho, is not recommended, because it will interfere with vision when turning the head.

Many cyclists protect themselves from rain by wearing rainproof clothing, but they forget that their bicycles don't like dirty water any better than their bodies do.

The water kicked up by your wheels is much worse for your bicycle than the clean rain falling from the sky. If you ride in wet conditions without fenders your chain, derailers and brakes will all get sprayed with sandy, muddy, scummy water, often mixed with gasoline residue. This is very bad for these parts.

Even more vulnerable is the lower section of your headset. Headsets are designed to shed water like the shingles of a roof, and are basically rainproof...but the gritty spray from below has easy entry to the bearing surfaces of the heavily-loaded lower races.

There is no substitute for full-length fenders, such as SKS (formerly ESGE), Planet Bike, or the better Zéfal or Delta models. The rear fender runs from the chainstays all around the rear tire until it is pointing almost straight down at the back. The good ones have two pairs of stays (wire struts) to hold the rear part in position, and also attach to the seatstay and chainstay bridges. The corresponding front fender extends from about 6 inches in front of the fork, rearward and down well below the "equator" of the front wheel, again with stays. Ideally, the front should also be equipped with a mudflap to protect your feet and the chainwheels from spray.

This traditional fender really works to protect you and your bicycle from spray kicked up by wet roads.

Shorter, clip-on fenders are slightly better than nothing, but very much worse than real fenders. Some rear racks have a flat plate on top which may prevent the "skunk stripe" on your back, but which do nothing to protect the bicycle.

Unfortunately, many newer bicycles are poorly designed, following silly fads that make it difficult or impossible to install real fenders. These bikes are designed for fair-weather use, and are not intended for serious cyclists.

This is particularly true of racing or racing-style bikes, which often are made without frame eyelets to attach the fender stays to, and with insufficient clearance under the brake bridges and calipers to allow fenders to clear the tires. This problem can be reoslted by installing slightly smaller wheels -- see the article 650b.html on this site.

Some suspended MTBs also may not take well to fenders -- the fender should move with the wheel rather than the suspended part of the frame or fork.

If you are stuck with such a bike, clip-ons may be your only option. On the other hand, rough, technical off-road riding is done without fenders -- the bicycle needs to be as rugged as possible, and the willingness to get plastered with mud from head to toe identifies a true off-road fanatic.

Full-length fenders attach at the fork crown (front), chainstay and seatstay bridges (rear). On bikes with cantilever or drum brakes and without other hardware such as a rack or reflector bracket attached at the brake bolt holes, you need extra 6 mm bolts to attach the fenders.

The stays attach to the forkends with (usually) 5 mm bolts. I recommend using stainless-steel Allen-head bolts. The threads should be lubricated with grease or oil so that you can get them nice and tight. Special large-diameter stainless-steel washers are available at better bike shops, to provide a good between the bolt head and the loop of the fender stay, so that the loop doesn't get deformed when you tighten the bolt.

The stays of Esge/SKS fenders attach to the fenders with small eyebolts and nuts that use an 8-mm wrench. These allow you to adjust the fenders to follow the shape of your wheel. Make sure to lubricate these threads and tighten the nuts REALLY tight. I use a 14-mm open-end wrench to hold the tab of the fender so that it won't rotate/bend while I am tightening these nuts. The stays, especially on the front fender, should be trimmed off so that they don't protrude far past the hardware of the fender, so you can't scratch your legs with them. ESGE/SKS provides plastic caps for the stays, but these tend to get lost sooner or later.

Planet Bike fenders have clips that are screwed to the fenders and which attach to the stays with hand-tightened screw-on fittings. You must trim the stays to length before installing these.

The first time you install a set of full fenders on a bike, it is a fairly time-consuming task, but after that, it isn't that big a deal to take them on and off.

A bicycle with fenders cannot be made as compact by removing the wheels, unless the fenders are removed too. This more often a problem with the rear fender and can prevent a bicycle from fitting inside a car or a closet.

Many small-wheel folding bicycles fold with both wheels in place, and so the wheels help to protect the fenders form being bent out of line. Quick-release fenders offer another solution. ESGE/SKS makes a quick-release kit for bikes that don't have caliper brakes. It consists of a pair of special bolts that fit the fork crown/seatstay bridge. These bolts have heads that incorporate a snap fitting to permit quick-release. The kit also includes 4 "Securi Clips" (see below) so the stays can be snapped out, leaving the Securi Clips in place.

There is a potential hazard with a front fender: It is possible to get debris caught between the fender and the tire, or between the moving spokes and the fender stays, which can cause the fender to crumple up and lock the front wheel.

A fallen tree branch jammed in the spokes, crumpled this fender and
launched John Allen over the handlebars. He is glad that he was wearing a helmet.

ESGE/SKS fenders come with a special plastic "Securi-Clip,” a snap-away fitting that connects the front fender stays to the forkends. This is a very worthwhile feature. With time, the fittings may loosen and begin to squeak. Filling the cavity of each fitting with silicone caulk, then shoving the stays in and letting the caulk dry will put an end to the squeaking.

Planet Bike fender clips, at the fender end of the stays, offer the same features, but they tend to loosen, so they eventually come apart during rides. Gluing them together with hot-melt or epoxy glue will cure this problem. The safety feature isn't impaired much, because the stays will still slide out of their screw-on fittings if something pulls on them. Once you have made this modification, removing the fenders requires unscrewing the fittings, or unbolting the stays from the fork/frame eyelets.

Fenders don't extend down as far as they might for maximum protection, because the ends would be vulnerable to damage from curbs and the like. Instead, flexible extensions called "mudflaps" are a valuable addition. Spray comes off the wheel as a "rooster tail", and is ejected almost directly upward if a fender extends down only as far as the "equator" of the tire. A suitable front mudflap which extends almost all the way to the ground will keep spray off your feet and the bicycle's bottom-bracket area. A mudflap on the rear fender is a welcome courtesy if you ride with other cyclists.

Triangular rubber mudflaps were formerly a standard accessory item, but they have become hard/impossible to find. These flaps are a bit heavy and stiff for mounting on modern plastic fenders anyway.

Many rain-savvy cyclists make their own mudflaps for plastic fenders out of plastic milk/cider jugs, commonly secured by "pop" rivets or small screws and nuts.

Alex Wetmore has a Web page on do-it-yourself mudflaps.