SKS Mudguards - a warning to the designer

[Chutzpah]

This is a message for the person who designed SKS mudguards, and also the person who wrote the instructions.

If we ever have the misfortune to meet, I may be forced to hurt you. I'm sorry that that is the case, but it's 1.49am on a Friday night and it's taken me several hours, with lots of swearing and shouting to fit your damn product. And it still isn't even complete.

It's probably best to stay out of my way for the moment, Mr SKS Mudguard man.

That is all.

 

[slowmotion]

This is a message for the person who designed SKS mudguards, and also the person who wrote the instructions.

If we ever have the misfortune to meet, I may be forced to hurt you. I'm sorry that that is the case, but it's 1.49am on a Friday night and it's taken me several hours, with lots of swearing and shouting to fit your damn product. And it still isn't even complete.

It's probably best to stay out of my way for the moment, Mr SKS Mudguard man.

That is all.

It is a rite of passage old bean. The instructions are complete sh#t, as I discovered two months ago. Second time around it is really easy, but, seeing as how I endured your pain and frustration, can we meet up to deal the moron a bloody good kicking?

 

[e-rider]

The problem is that the guy who wrote the instructions already knows how to fit mudguards and it's a simple case of 'easy when you know how'

If I was the maker of mudguards I wouldn't even include instructions assuming that everyone could fit them. It's easy to forget your first time; especially if it was 30 years ago.

 

[Aperitif]

Chutzpah - check the second page, bottom right - you should see the writer's name there. In small letters: 'S. Legg' usually.

 

[Chutzpah]

This morning, after around 4 hours in total of faffing around (including yesterday), I'm at a stage where I'm happy with them. I think that maybe the best thing to do is completely ignore the instructions - but of course you don't know that until you're an hour into it.

I like the first instruction to "check all parts are complete"... I would if you gave me a parts list!

I've had to bodge the front, as none of the screws fit in the front brake block, but I think that might be a Trek thing as it's a different sized hole to everywhere else on the bike.

The annoying thing is, now they're on and fitted properly, they look really nice! Just wish they sorted the instructions out! Oh, and make the stays shorter, I can't believe I have three quarters of an inch protruding when they're meant to be designed for my size of wheel.

 

[Chutzpah]

Chutzpah - check the second page, bottom right - you should see the writer's name there. In small letters: 'S. Legg' usually.

No name on there. Maybe he's ashamed. I would be if I wrote that - part of my job involves writing user documentation and I'd be sacked if I wrote that garbage.

 

[GrasB]

I've never had a problem fixing SKS guards to bikes. As 30 seconds with a hacksaw or dremel sorts out any excess stay they don't need to make them shorter they need to make them longer! When bending them around things like disc brakes I find that they're not long enough & I end up having to make my own stays up.

 

[slowmotion]

I may have been entirely stupid, but the problem I had was working out an accurate way of cutting the stays to length, maintaining a uniform "tyre to guard" diameter, and still keeping the plastic protective end-caps intact. In the end, I just cut off the ends off the end-caps so that I could slide the stays up and down, and then cut the stays in-situ. I think that ColinJ regards unprotected stays as dangerous. He is almost certainly right.

 

[MikeMc]

The trick is to install them without the plastic end-caps then mark how much each stay needs to be cut, remove, cut, then re-install with the now correct length stays.

But yes, the instruction writer does need to die a painful death.

 

[I like Skol]

I may have been entirely stupid, but the problem I had was working out an accurate way of cutting the stays to length, maintaining a uniform "tyre to guard" diameter, and still keeping the plastic protective end-caps intact. In the end, I just cut off the ends off the end-caps so that I could slide the stays up and down, and then cut the stays in-situ. I think that ColinJ regards unprotected stays as dangerous. He is almost certainly right.

I just went through this last week when fitting my Hybrid with a set of SKS Chromoplastics. I am quite handy so just had a quick glance at the drawings to get the gist of things then spread out the components to see what goes where and away I went. It did take a few hours but the result is worth it. The stays have to be over-long as the mounting eye can be in vastly different places from one frame to another. I also had to slightly bend the front stays on one side to clear the disc brake caliper and discarded the quick release clip thingy for the front as it was likely to cause problems with the caliper clearance.

The best way to establish the length that the stays need cutting to is to do a trial fit without the end caps then remove the stays one at a time and cut to length before refitting with the caps in place.

Not sure why or what you are trying to screw into the front brake block??? (presumably you mean through the fork crown?) but I found all the screws supplied matched the threads on my GT frame and also the chainstay and seatstay bridges were internally threaded so I saved a pile of SS nuts and ended up with a very neat job. I must admit the long bolt for the fork crown was only just long enough.

 

[slowmotion]

The trick is to install them without the plastic end-caps then mark how much each stay needs to be cut, remove, cut, then re-install with the now correct length stays.

But yes, the instruction writer does need to die a painful death.

Blooming heck, Mike, that is so blindingly obvious now. You are a genius


Right, shall we spear his member with an uncut stay? Plenty of people would.

 

[gaz]

I got my LBS to fit them for me

 

[aberal]

I spent the best part of 2 days over the Christmas break trying to fit SKS mudguards to my bike. The problem I had was that I have wishbone stays at the rear and have fitted cross forks at the front and without going into the nitty gritties and to cut a LONG story short...realised that I could only fit the rear guard using zip ties and the front guard with an extra bracket and a bespoke bolt, washer and nut. Basically, not one of the supplied nuts and bolts fitted the bolt holes on the bike. In the end I decided that that was going to be a recipe for endless problems so had to return them. But I agree - the instructions were basically absolute nonsense.

 

[slowmotion]

aberal, welcome. Bring your torture instrument of choice

 

[User482]

On the plus side, once they're fitted, they won't any adjustment. Ever.