In my second ever post on this blog I was removing fenders from the Handsome Devil. That was nearly six and half years ago and I haven't really had a fendered bike since. I live in Seattle. I have a literal fleet of bikes. No I am not sure what my problem is, but I decided it was time to change that hole in the quiver.
The Novara came to me with fenders so it seemed the logical choice but the plush 27 x 1 1/4 Panaracer Pasela's I put on it didn't want to play nice with the fenders. I decided to go ahead and order some Kenda K36 Skinwall 27 X 1 1/8 tires, as that was the width it had when I got it. A pair of Kenda's cost just slightly more than one Pasela so it wasn't a huge outlay. 1 x 1/8 converts to roughly 28 mm, as you can see in the real world with inflation to about 80 psi they are more like 26 mm. Replacing the tires was step one.
I remembered seeing this trick in a Rivendell video for bending back the tab on the fender mount so it doesn't interfere with the headset cup. If your fender mounted in front of the fork you would bend the other way. That was step two
With the new narrower tires there was tons of clearance under the fender. Since I was installing fenders that had already been sized for this bike step 3, actually installing the fenders, was pretty easy compared to installing fenders from scratch.
Front fender line is acceptable and most importantly the tire spins free.
Rear fender line looks fine and the tire spins free and I used a shorter bolt with washers on the drive side fender stay attachment so it would not stick out (to the inside of the stay) and interfere with the chain. That's also in the video in the link above.
Now if the new seat post binder bolt I am waiting on doesn't fix the seat post slippage issue I will feel silly for expending this effort but I'm optimistic I have a fendered ride in the fleet once again.
Ride in the rain. Don't get a skunk stripe. Smile. Repeat.
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