Rain Bike

It rained like a motherfucker Thursday and I got to ride around in most of it. I went over to CityBikes and picked up a used rear fender to cut down and fuck around with so it fits on my zero-clearance track bike. The day before I had picked up a couple of used front fenders at A Better Cycle. Tired of the skunk stripe and wet feet. I know they make these little fenders that fit on the back of seatstays and forks but the front one doesn't really do shit. I took two full coverage fenders and cut them down a little where they wouldn't clear the frame and fork. I had to drill and tap the rear dropouts and use some P-clamps up front, but it don't look half-bad. They wrap down pretty far so they should work as well as the fenders on my 52 Schwinn.





Srsly, I am not being a pussy about this rain. It was raining hard the whole time I was riding in the city, and then on my way home from the train station it started raining harder. I was wearing Burley rain pants and a rain jacket, and by the time I got home my Vans, wool socks, Levis, and hoodie were wet, just from water coming in the seams and dripping in around my neck. My gloves were soaked thru but they are not even water-resistant. I guess my backpack isn't either because it had an inch of water inside it!

They work pretty well although the rear one would be better if it went down to the chainstays, right now it is dumping water onto the Velo Orange sealed bottom bracket. Not having the little "nose" of the fender doesn't seem to make a difference. As a side note, Von Dutch did the same sort of thing on some of the motorcycles he built, he just rotated the stock fenders back to get a kustom look. Looks cool and works better.

I also decided to get rid of the lane splitters for the winter. These mustache bars came off of an exercise bike and have no drop/rise. I like cork bar tape in the rain the best. Seems counterintuive but the water just squeezes right out of them.