Which road bike fenders?

I’ve been a happy owner of the SKS Raceblade Fenders on my road bicycle for several years now.

My well used SKS Racerblade bike fenders

They mount easily, adjust easily, stay in place, and they keep shmutz from collecting on my bike, my components, and my backside. Fenders keep backpacks dry and protect your tail lights from the worst of the rain. In the Twitter discussion this morning, a couple of people reminded me that they’re helpful for those following, too.


Unfortunately, now that the rain has started in earnest for my part of California, I can’t find them. I’ve avoided buying a replacement set because a corollary to Murphy’s Law guarantees I’ll find my old fenders as soon as I mount a new set.

It’s time to bite the bullet, however. I’m looking at Planet Bike’s SpeedEZ Road Fenders, which seems mostly equivalent to the SKS fenders, and for about ten dollars less. Like the SKS Raceblades, they can mount on bikes like mine that lack fender mounting eyelets on the stays and front fork.

planetbike

I’m mostly pleased with Planet Bike’s other products, which consistently are a good value for the money. Is this true for these Road Fenders too? The only thing I see missing are mounting holes for mudflaps. I think these are moderately important, but it should be easy enough to drill the hole. I’m undecided if this slight effort is worth the 20% savings over the SKS fenders. You can see in the photo of my bike that I don’t exactly keep the mudguards in place, anyway.

8 Comments

  1. CRUD RoadRacer MK2 seems to be a little more popular than SKS Raceblade right now. Don’t know anyone using anything else (on bikes without fender eyelets).

  2. I’m not familiar with that fender, taking a look now and I’m interested. Thanks for the heads up! The only drawback – no Amazon Prime 2 day shipping. Any idea if they’re distributed in the USA?

  3. I like the PB fenders and use them on my touring bike. Initially, I purchased the ones without the release tabs on the front fender. They broke on a tour when a rock must have got caught inside. They did last for a long time before that. I now own the ones with the release. My wife just purchased PB fenders. The front one broke not long after purchase but without hesitation, PB, through our LBS, replaced it. Since the new fender, no problem. I like PBs support of bicycling Perhaps SKS does the same, I am just not familiar

  4. I’ve installed my fair share of fenders, and I have to give the edge to the SKS’s. The Planet Bike ones are fine as long as they fit well out of the box, but these fenders (PB or SKS) almost never do (especially the front) and the SKS design allows for easier manipulation.

    As an aside, it’s so nice to see bikes purpose-built with clearances for higher-volume tires and real fenders becoming mainstream. Just last night, we completed a build of a beautiful lugged CroMo Velo Orange Passhunter as a commuter from parts harvested off of a Canondale carbon fiber that was originally bought at Sports-Basement and hated. Kind of his fault for being seduced the superlight racy racer when he really needed a comfy, sturdy commuter, but all’s well that ends well.

    http://velo-orange.blogspot.com/2014/06/3000-mile-pass-hunter-review-with-bonus.html

  5. Thanks Ron. I really like the easy adjustment for SKS fenders. Looking at the Planet Bike image it looks like I probably need to fiddle with adjustment screws?

    Based on related discussion on Twitter I ended up ordering a set of the CRUD RoadRacer fenders (also mentioned by Kylee above) through my LBS. They should come in today, I think.

  6. As mentioned the Racer Blades are way more adjustable. The key adjustment for me on the from is the ability to “rotate” the fender in the mounts… Which is impossible on the PBs.

    Do tell how the CRUDs work out though. I need to find something for my touring bike

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