Crud guards - are they ever quiet?

[robjh]

What with the autumn rains coming, I fetched my Crud Guard 2 mudguards out of the shed last weekend and fixed them on my road bike, and all week have been plagued by high-pitched chirruping, screeching and rattling as plastic mudguard hits tyre, on all but the silkiest tarmac. I spent a lot of time today adjusting, bending, lashing the stays to my pannier rack, even reshaping parts over a flame, and got some improvement but went out again and a small but infuriating noise is still there - the whole thing is so flimsy that the rear mudguard stays wobble from side to side and vibrate against the tyre.
In fact I've been through all this before, last year, and never got them 100% quiet then either. I also lost a number of the tiny plastic screws that must have worked themselves loose in all the vibration.

If any Crud Guard user has found the secret of quiet running, would they mind sharing? It's driving me spare.

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

Yes. Bin them and buy something more rigid

 

[Hacienda71]

Replace the brushes. They are designed to rub but the brushes need to be ok. The brushes are draft excluders cut to fit. You can buy a lifetimes supply from most diy retailers.

 

[robjh]

Replace the brushes. They are designed to rub but the brushes need to be ok. The brushes are draft excluders cut to fit. You can buy a lifetimes supply from most diy retailers.

I'll give it a try. The original brushes fell off yonks ago.

 

[Hacienda71]

Try to position them so they rub against the rim rather than the tyre.

 

[400bhp]

They are the Devil's work. Flimsy crap.

Having said that they are certainly better than nothing.

 

[slowmotion]

Surely, no mudguards are better that constantly grinding away your wheel rims with a brush and some road grit?

 

[ColinJ]

Apart from adjusting the Roadracers correctly, it is important to rinse out any crap that accumulates under them. I do that when I get home, but you can also do it by riding through SHALLOW puddles. If you don't know a puddle is shallow, assume that it is filling a cavernous pothole!

At this time of year, it is easy to get leaves trapped under the Cruds, and that will make a racket, so clear them out whenever you need to.

I agree that the Cruds can be tiresome, but I prefer them to alternatives that I have seen, and I don't like getting covered in crap. I got caught out in an horrendous storm today, but at least I wasn't getting mucky sh*te flicked up into my face on the way home.

 

[topcat1]

It's good to hear you're getting out Colin

raceblades?

 

[Andrew_Culture]

My Marathon+ sawed through my cruds even although I adjusted them every day. Even a mild crosswind seems to knock them out if shape.

I fitted race blades last night and they seem a lot stiffer. There's only about 1mm of clearance with Marathon+ 25mm though!

 

[ColinJ]

It's good to hear you're getting out Colin

raceblades?

If you mean for my bike - no thanks, I will stick with the Crud Roadracers! They have been okay since I washed out the mud trapped under them last week and tweaked their setup.

 

[amaferanga]

Surely, no mudguards are better that constantly grinding away your wheel rims with a brush and some road grit?

Eh? Have you actually seen the 'brushes' in question? Zero chance of them grinding away a rim in anything less than several million miles.

 

[uclown2002]

Do raceblades require the same clearance as roadracers?

 

[Hacienda71]

I have cruds on one bike and raceblade longs on another. The raceblades are more sturdy and you can remove them rapidly. However they are also just as fiddly to set up, weigh more than cruds and offer less coverage. Their main merit for me is they fit a bike with less than the 5mm you need for cruds. There is no panacea for a bike lacking proper guard clearance and fitting.

 

[Banjo]

Crud say you need 5mm clearance to use them. I have that but only just and have given up on Cruds. I'm sure that with a bit more clearance they would be ok. I have broken a few with mud and grit getting in the gap.