Treadly and Me

Among cyclists, nothing screams "commuter" more than a bike with mudguards (aka fenders in some parts of the world). Panniers come a close second, but there's something about mudguards that says "this rider doesn't like a wet black stripe up his/her arse on a wet day".

Despite prevailing climatic conditions, there are mudguards on my commuter machine (and panniers for that matter, so you know where I stand). For the most part I like them. Sure they cause a bit of extra wind resistance, but I don't think that they slow me down considerably (at least, not at the speed I travel).

Choice: rattle or hum

Metal mudguards bug me—no matter how well fitted they are, they eventually develop a rattle. And even in the most minor bingle they get bent (usually jamming the wheel). But plastic mudguards are more forgiving: they don't rattle and on impact they either distort and spring back or just shear-off.

The only way that metal mudguards are better than the plastic variety are their rigidity: when you install them they stay where you bloody-well put them. Not so the plastic ones, which can bend and flex all over the place, making them a bit tricky to fit properly.

Preferred installation

These days I'm mostly riding the Retired Marathoner's old hybrid but he preferred metal mudguards. A few weeks ago the rattle and clank of the mudguards finally annoyed me once too often and I swiped the plastic mudguards from my old Malvern Star and installed them instead. At the same time I also fitted some Continental TravelContact tyres (big on pavement and gravel roads, apparently).

There was an instant improvement and the ride was blissfully much quieter. Except for one faint rubbing noise on the front wheel that seemed to come and go. It was easy to see what was happening: the front right hand corner of the mudguard was distorted inward slightly toward the tyre and was sometimes bumping along the edge, where the TravelContact is a bit chunkier. However repeated fiddling over the following weeks totally failed to eliminate this annoyance.

Frustrating

The solution was obvious—loosen the holding nut, straighten the mudguard and tighten the nut. But every time I tried, the mudguard always seem to come to rest just a little bit askew.

Hmm… Frustrating.

But this morning I caught the cause in action: I loosened nut, lined everything up, nipped up the holding nut, checked that everything was still in line (perfect, just like every other time), then gave the spanner an extra little tweak (just to be sure, you know) and as I did that the mudguard distorted just slightly and in an ever so familiar way. Instead of tightening the nut, the one-for-luck wrench on the wrench shifted the whole bolt and mudguard mounting.

I'll pause here while you savour my embarassment.

How embarassment

What a dope. I'm reminded of advice that the Retired Marathoner gave me more than once: use enough torque to tighten a nut (bolt, screw…), and no more. Or to put it another way, don't go wrenching your nuts.

wrench

To twist or turn (a thing) forcibly or with effort; to jerk or pull with a violent twist

Oxford English Dictionary

So in a flash, my mudguard annoyances were eliminated and I was that little bit happier.

Next!

Now, if someone can help me work out why my cleat/pedal combination creaks, I'll be even happier—and riding the quietest bike on my route! Surely I haven't over-tightened something else…