Fender Installation and Usage Experiences

[Ted W]

Hello fellow RBW owners!

Now that I've happily found narrower tires for my Appaloosa, I'm looking at fenders. I have three other bikes with fenders, two of them have the plastic SKS fenders that Riv sells (the older models) and one has a set of Planet Bike, aluminum fenders. Personally, I'm a big fan of the aluminum fenders over the plastic ones, they just feel more solid. The Planet Bike fenders, however, leave a little to be desired. They use the same flimsy struts found on the plastic versions which, combined with their heavier weight, cause them to wiggle quite a bit more than the plastic fenders.

This time around I went looking at some of the fenders made by Honjo, both the SimWorks branded and the Rene Herse branded models. It looks like these require more work to mount but may result in a more sturdy fixture to the bike. I'm not terribly worried about my ability to mount them as I've got a well equipped shop and have done metalwork before. I'm curious to learn what folks on the list think of them, though. How easy or difficult did you find them to install? Were you happy with how you installed them? How has your experience been riding with them after some time? Also, RH claims their Honjo fenders are designed differently than the standard Honjo fenders, is there any merit to their claims? Do they actually do a better job of channeling water than the non-RH versions? Worth the extra $30?

Cheers,

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Ted Wood < ted.l...@gmail.com >

[Brian Turner]

Ted, have you looked at the fenders made by Berthoud? I recently called up Peter White and ordered a set for my new Atlantis project. They're stainless, and smooth, but more affordable than some of the other offerings you mentioned above. The best thing however, I only had to drill one hole to match up to my rear brake bridge mounting point. Everything else was pre-drilled (the stays, the hole near the bottom bracket / chainstay bridge, and the front fender crown). You still have to have some good attention to detail to get good, clean fender lines... but having almost all of your holes pre-drilled certainly takes almost all of the real stress out of the equation.

[DavidP]

I recently came across this very detailed and helpful guide to installing metal fenders. I've installed 3-4 sets before this go but this guide gave me the best results yet:

https://somervillebikes.wordpress.com/2020/03/01/how-to-install-metal-fenders-part-i-achieving-a-proper-arc-radius/

-Dave

[John P. in SF]

I have had good luck with the  75mm wide VO fenders. I have owned an appaloosa in the past with these fenders and 2.1 tires fit fine and if you are ok with trimming knobs and dimpling chainstays, 2.25 knobbies fit under the fenders as well. I currently have that same pair of fenders on my 59 clem L with 2.25 knobbies and plenty of clearance. I have other bikes with Honjos (3), but I have found VO fenders to be just fine and much less expensive. 

I would be wary of any claims made by JH/RH for product, whether it be planing, noise suppression knobbies, or rain channeling fenders...

You can also use VO or honjo stays and mounting hardware on plastic fenders of any manufacture and they end up essentially as solid as an aluminum fender. My dirt camper has this setup. the stays are quite inexpensive compared to a full fender set.

Cheers.

[Ted W]

Brian, do you have a state-side distributor for the Berthound fenders? These look interesting. I've found them on the Berthound Cycles website but they're almost the same price as the Honjo fenders after shipping from Europe.

On Thu, Oct 26, 2023 at 10:35 AM Brian Turner <brok...@gmail.com> wrote:

Ted, have you looked at the fenders made by Berthoud? I recently called up Peter White and ordered a set for my new Atlantis project. They're stainless, and smooth, but more affordable than some of the other offerings you mentioned above. The best thing however, I only had to drill one hole to match up to my rear brake bridge mounting point. Everything else was pre-drilled (the stays, the hole near the bottom bracket / chainstay bridge, and the front fender crown). You still have to have some good attention to detail to get good, clean fender lines... but having almost all of your holes pre-drilled certainly takes almost all of the real stress out of the equation.

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Ted Wood < ted.l...@gmail.com >

[Brian Turner]

Ted, I got mine by perusing Peter White Cycle's website. Actually, I called them up and talked with Linda at length about which size I should get. She's an absolute joy to speak with, and will do whatever it takes to answer your questions adequately.

She made sure they had them in stock, and shipped them to me within a couple of days.

I have dealt directly with Berthoud several times, and they are also amazing to work with. Kinda like Blue Lug, the shipping is more expensive of course, but the shipping times are incredibly - almost impossibly - fast.

-Brian

[Mr. Ray]

Ben's Cycle (Milwaukee) also carries Berthoud.  

[Ed Carolipio]

Installation of the aluminum fenders is more challenging but achievable if you have some patience and have all the hardware needed for a proper install on your bike.

The Honjos are superior: just a quality product, sturdy and solid, and beautiful on the bike. I opted not to use fender tabs and bolted the fenders into the fork crown (front - some would use a daruma but my fork has an dedicated interior fender mount) and the seat stay bridge (rear) with the extra fender reinforcements on the inside. That makes for a solid primary mount. I used leather washers where the fender touched a bolt or nut.

Here's the blog post on RH fenders. I think the differences are they spec a longer fender and have different fender bolts. They offer hollow stays for extra money.

https://www.renehersecycles.com/we-love-fenders/

--Ed C.

On Thursday, October 26, 2023 at 7:27:48 AM UTC-7 ted.l...@gmail.com wrote:

[Stephen]

I’ll throw out another rec for VO fenders. Mounted the 65 fluted on my appaloosa with 50mm gravel kings, which seems to be maxxed out in my opinion. The install was difficult because i didnt have a nice space to do it in, but after the fact i think it wasn’t that much harder than plastic. I got my fenders on sale recently, itd be worth checking the price on them because i think theyre a bit cheaper than honjos. 

[Arthur Mayfield]

I’ve used Honjo, Planet Bike, SKS, and both the aluminum and plastic versions of Portland Design Works fenders. By far and away, the PDW fenders are easiest to install, have the best strut safety disconnects, are the quietest, and look at least as good, if not better, than the rest, assuming you don’t want bare aluminum or mirror polished stainless steel. PDW aluminum fenders come in polished silver (which I haven’t seen in person) or a deeply anodized matte black. They used to also come in satin dark gray, but those may not be available anymore. PDW plastic fenders are as quiet as the aluminum, are even easier to install due to being a bit more flexible, are slightly lighter, are half the price (same hardware), and come in a tasteful satin black. 

[Patrick Moore]

If you want all aluminum fenders, consider Velo Orange. They're cheaper than Honjos and Berthouds but almost as good -- the aluminum sheet may be a very tiny bit thinner, but I've never dented mine.

Metal fenders are a pain to install but if you do it right you'll suffer on the first pair and then after that installation will be relatively easy; still a bit harder than SKS's or Planet Bike  or Zefal or Avocet or Blumel or what have you plastic fenders.

Still, IME, if you want sturdy above all else, use the Planet Bike polycarbonate fenders. They hold up against banging and pressure better than any metal fenders I've used except heavy steel Walds. Even if leaving them under pressure in the back of a hot car warps them, you can always unwarp them with a hair dryer.

Or, for sturdy, get a custom par from Kelpie; sheet is 50% thicker gauge and the struts are also 50% thicker -- 5 mm instead of 3 mm? But really, the PB polycarbonates are as sturdy as Kelpies and cost about 1/4 as much.

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Patrick Moore

Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum

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