magnatom said:
No, I'm not asking if they are effective in keeping your bottom dry (sorry Bonj
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What I want to know is, if you have mudguards on, do they make a significant difference to your speed on sportives etc?
On a recent sportive, which was a bit wet, I had my full length mudguards on the bike. I thought I would be nice to the other riders (OK I am actually lazy and have never taken them off
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However, at the sportive I didn't see any other riders with full guards on and only one rider with clip on guards on. Why? Obviously some bikes can't take guards, fair enough, but a lot of the bikes could.
So is it a fashion thing, or do full mudguards really make a significant difference to performance? I'd be surprised if they did.
I'd let my membership of the vehement militant anti-mudguard brigade lapse because I thought they were necessary for audaxes, and I had them on for a bit. However, I'm now back as a fully paid up member.
Had to remove them to get my bike in a van, and when i put them back on the tyre was rubbing, so took out the piece of rubber in between the brake bolt clamp and the guard. This made it rattle a bit, but not too much. Then, 3/4 of the way to work, one of the stays popped out - so managed to frig it by increasing the tension on one of the other stays in order for it not to catch on the tyre on the way home, during which I was praying for it to not get worse/come off completely/start rubbing/the stay to spear me in the leg/get caught in the spokes and catapult me down a mine resulting in certain death. I couldn't remove it completely because i didn't have an 8mm spanner necessary to fasten it to the chainstay bridge.
This last, rambling, paragraph highlights the quagmire a cyclist inevitably immerses themselves into when they choose mudguards - a world of frigs, hacks, bodges and old bits cobbled together.
Cycle manufacturers don't see the point in mudguards, that's why most don't consider the ability to fit mudguards as a design criteria of the bike.
On audaxes, not wishing to be big headed, and if this year (my first audaxing year) is anything to go by, but I will have to be kept up with on more than 5% of audaxes for me to consider mudguards for socially conscientous reasons. And any cafe owners that complain are obviously ones that don't really like cyclists anyway and I would be unlikely to frequent them with a barge pole as they are the sort of cafe that serves coffee that's weaker than a nun's piss. I've been in tons of good cafes sopping wet and they haven't minded, one of which was quite posh (felt overly posh) and they didn't even mind.
I always wear cycling clothes when cycling, for anyone that wants to cycle like a politician, preferring to ride their bike wearing their business suit, then maybe mudguards are for you. But for serious cyclists like me, any water that splashes up is inveitably outnumbered 10 to 1 by water falling from the sky onto you.
Mudguards, I'm afraid - cannot be trusted, are of no benefit, are time consuming to faff around with, look bad, and slow you down.
magnatom - if you are worried about other cyclists getting splashed by your rear wheel, then what i would suggest is cycling faster, that way they won't be able to keep up with you.
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