Mudguards

Thanks for suggesting these.
The proprietary Cubeguards are not prohibitively priced,
so, I'll try them (first).

Best laid plans and all that ...

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Thank you! The upper was a Cane Creek AER I pilfered from work. I hated it. I couldn't get the preload right at all, and the wear-in period never ended. I ended up replacing it with a good old Cane Creek 40 top and bottom.

ah, that's shit.
I was only aware of them as a friend has a cube attain and had the same issue.
proprietary bits is reason enough to not buy one for me.

After all of my fussing looking for spacers, I ended up stuffing a small offcut of thick bar tape between the crown and mudguard, which completely stopped the rattling on yesterday's grotty jolly. Ahh well! Now I just need a set of @vthejk's flaps to prevent my bike from getting caked in shite.

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no pic of the actual solution!?

A bit of bar tape is a great call actually! Why haven't I thought of that?

Whilst I'm here. What are the options for relatively inexpensive mudguards with decent coverage for 700x45c tyres?

https://winstanleysbikes.co.uk/kinesis-fend-off-mudguard

Not sure if they're inexpensive though

Not too bad! They'll be going on a Kinesis as well, nice and matchy matchy.

Apologies! I was enjoying the luxe pics too much. I could trim the tape to match the profile of the guard but I expect I never will – it's fully covered by the bar bag when riding.

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I'm assuming this is sorted, but if that falls out, I use a piece of inner tube with a slice out of it - and the mudguard mount goes through that slice so the inner tube covers all the area under the fork crown and can't slip off.

Was going to suggest something similar.
Piece of bartape that runs front to back, with holes at either end, with the bolt passing through the holes.

Bit of a dilemma for me. Currently running 65mm Bluemels on top of 27.5 x 2.25 tyres on my Bridge Club and while they fit, there is too much side-to-side flexibility, and every time I hit a bump, the front mudguard in particular swings to the side and hits the tyre, making an unpleasant and slightly worrying noise. This is possibly also because, while they do fit over the tyres, the tyres are fatter / clearance smaller than SKS recommend. @Haistelija you've got similar sized tyres under the same Bluemels, do they work ok for you?

The frame will happily take much fatter mudguards, but if they are still just as wobbly, I worry the same problem will occur. So that rules out just replacing with 69mm Bluemels for £40, which are in any event only 4mm wider.

I could go for 75mm Bluemels Style for £55. These are both significantly fatter, and possibly going to be less flexy due to the stays being a single rod that is bent around and clipped in place, rather than each side having its own straight rod held in place with the traditional fiddly grabber things? They are aesthetically very challenging though.

Alternatively I could spring for metal mudguards, which would surely be stiffer. I've used Velo Orange and Gilles Berthoud in the past very happily but they don't make any fat enough. I'm not prepared to do any re-radiusing. PDW do 650Beast in 65mm for £120ish but a) they are seemingly out of stock everywhere and b) I'd still technically be exceeding the manufacturer recommended max tyre size, which for the PDWs is 2.2".

So, that brings me to the the £190 Simworks/Honjo 74mm. This is obviously far more than I'd like to spend on mudguards but if they are gonna do a brilliant job and last forever, I could stomach it. But @Skülly says he's broken two pairs and Simworks themselves provide an extremely un-reassuring article washing their hands of any responsibility for cracks.

So what would you do if you were me? Stick to plastic, cheap and v ugly with Bluemels Style? Or go for Honjo and risk the world's most expensive mudguards cracking in short order?

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You could use a long bolt and some spacers to connect the front part of the mudguard to the rack

the front mudguard in particular swings to the side and hits the tyre

Is this the only issue you're trying to solve?

The other potential issues you mentioned don't sound like they impact you at the moment.

In which case I think you want to increase the support on the front of the front mudguard.

I used someone else's pic because it's side on, but you get the idea....

I'd do this first as its the lowest effort. You can buy Gilles Berthoud struts separately so that would be a good route to adding support to the front.

Then probably the 75mm Bluemels Style, as Imo they have a utilitarian charm to them which would suit a functional bike.

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Is this the only issue you're trying to solve

Yeah just this. The rear mudguard does it a little on major bumps but the front is much worse. It's actually towards the bottom of the mudguard where it happens though, the whole thing twists from behind the fork bolt, and the stays do nothing to prevent it moving side to side.

Stiffer stays would surely help but they'd need to more or less replace the existing ones which I'm not sure is possible. Either that or increase the clearance, so it would have to move further to make contact with the tyre. I don't know whether 2mm each side increase, from going up a size in Bluemels would be enough.

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Ahhh... I see so it's actually the lack of strength of the bottom struts X the wobbly plastic.

Years ago someone on here used GB struts on Bluemels, I assume for the cleaner look. I wonder if two of those would be a stronger set up?

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Sorry, it appears I misunderstood your problem.

I think you'd end up making you problem worse by going a size up, as they would probably be marginally softer.

Condor are good for PDW spares, perhaps the external mounting on their stays might work? Though they are quite square..

https://www.condorcycles.com/products/pdw-stays-and-safety-tab-kit?variant=44762170229057

I've had the Bluemels Style 75's on a bridge club with same wheel/tyre size and found they worked really well.

I've used Bluemels Style 75s on my Bridge Club with the same wheel/tyre size and found they worked really well...

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so it's actually the lack of strength of the bottom struts X the wobbly plastic

Yeah precisely, plus also the narrower-than-recommended clearance meaning that when it does wobble, it hasnt got far to travel before hitting the tyre

Thanks all, will look at spare struts

Honjo still calling to me though, just want to be sure they wouldn't crack

Just seen this - very encouraging, doesn't look as ugly as I expected. Any side on photos?

I had some success with Bluemels by fettling the bend on the metal stay attachment brackets. I found out the only bit actually making contact on mine when wobbling was the most inward bit on the bracket that steps in and down.

10 minutes of bending by hand sorted it out. IIRC flaring the bracket itself but also bending the tabs slightly outboard so the angle of exit for the stays was more extreme (outward).

I feel like this might have given the stays some outward sprung preload which also helped stabilise laterally ...

similar sized tyres under the same Bluemels, do they work ok for you?

Yeah they definitely rattle a bit and in the same spot as yours. Wider fender or stronger struts might help but I'm not worried as every single pair of Bluemels installed I've installed rattle at least a bit.