Fitting Velo Orange mudguards

Lesson learned. Never again.

I paid the full price from Freshtripe :(

Look how far away the original hole was drilled. Ridiculous.

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Look how far away the original hole was drilled. Ridiculous.

Not surprised fenders mounted to another bike don't line up on yours - there are as many rear bridge fender mount positions as there are stars in the sky! That's why the fenders ship new undrilled at that spot and with the crimpy thing.

SKS work just as well

Huh, been my experience that properly mounted alloy fenders last years without issue whereas SKS break after a season or two.

All the VOs I have I've used the crimp on bracket at the rear and the L bracket on the front. Something is wrong here. Did you say you bought these second hand?
What bracket is being used at the front? Where are you based? I've mounted enough I could give some help.

Is it a case of just needing to slightly flare out the edges of the VO guards (can't do that with sks..)?

I had a similar issue and sorted it that way.

SKS work just as well,

Disagree with that.

A bit.

Maybe the narrowest SKS work just as well but I do find the weight of the wider ones is a bit much for the stays and thus they flop about and rattle a bit more.

It's not enough of a problem to warrant the extra cost and I have my suspicions that a 45mm plastic sks guard will have room inside for a larger tyre than a 45mm metal guard hence I've just bought a set of Longboards for my winter/gravel/do it all bike.

All the VOs I have I've used the crimp on bracket at the rear and the L bracket on the front.

Not a fan of the daruma? I prefer the L bracket over the crimp for the rear myself.

Actually did use it once on my cross check, but found it easier to flip on and off with the L bracket. All depends on the gap between mounting points and the tire. I've become pretty handy at bending the crimp bracket to bridge decent sized gaps.

All,

Thank you so much for all your comments, opinions and general input. Having become significantly stressed with it all and having spent an obsurd amount of time trying to achieve something that should take next to no time at all, I have decided to move the VO guards on and try another brand.

I'll put these up on the Classifieds for £15 collected. Someone will take them ... hopefully.

Bummer they didn't work out for you. Hope you find something that does.

To all brave mudguard settlers- many combination of frames and guards lack good clearance
But I also often find that the limiting factor is the height of the rim brake caliper and the shape of the underside of the caliper arms. They are usually quite asymmetric and one arm hits/squashes the guard, if the guard is up as far as the frame allows.
So the lateral solution is to reshape the brake. There is a lot of metal in the arm, particularly in Shimano r650. So attack the underside with a half round file to produce an even curve when the brakes are applied - depends on rim width. This gains quite a few mil of clearance - obviously the brake arms is weaker now to some extant, but just look at some of the weedy calipers we used to have. I can't detect any change in brake function, but I just remove as little as I can to form the needed shape, rear brake is best for the nerves, just do a bit at a time with lots of trial fits.
Obviously could apply the same logic to a tight fork crown too - but that's beyond my risk tolerance

something that should take next to no time at all

Oh sweet summer child.

Oh sweet summer child.

Indeed.

One of the least predictable fettling jobs you can undertake.

OR use a reach-around bracket and save yourself the headache.

I've installed a few dozen fenders (mudguards, whatever) over the years and they are ALWAYS a pain in the ass. Fender jobs never go as planned. There are always so many annoying problems to solve, tight spots, crimping, filing, unbolting, fiddling, new tight spots, more filing, more crimping.

As pretty much everyone has said in this thread, not the fault of VO that they didn't work on your frame unfortunately. There are plenty of bike/fender combinations out there that mix like oil and water, and your bike was just one of them.

PhilDAS pretty much summed it up perfectly, and hard lols ensued:

"I don't think it's the fault of the mudguard that it doesn't fit under your specific fork"

"I don't think it's the fault of the mudguard that it doesn't fit under your specific frame"

Doesn't improve the shape problem though

Doesn't improve the shape problem though

It does - it splits and places the fender before and after the caliper. It's not ideal, but neither are full fenders on a road bike with tight clearances, so...

Ah hadn't thought of that
Looks pretty neat too

And a great way to ensure your brakes won't look like that for long.

And a great way to ensure your brakes won't look like that for long.

Better smudgy brakes than a smudgy ass.

Apparently you can heat chromoplastics up to bend them.... Never tried myself though