Keeping Your Backside Dry

SKS Commuter Mudguards Review

I needed some guards for a road going mountain bike, the SKS commuter guards seemed to fit the bill: "high quality - low cost - full length mudguard set with high quality - stainless-steel fittings from the producers of the World s finest mudguards". Let's see if they match the hype.

Price

Bingo - a quick scan of the net suggests these are the cheapest full length mudguards around. I bought some for the utility bikes for £13.75 each, delivered. Low cost, check.

Spares Available?

Check, SKS sell almost all the fittings separately.

Speaking of Fittings

The included bits do indeed attach the mudguards to a bike.

• The front mudguard has a solid bracket to attach to a fork crown, this works quite well.
• There is a pressed steel clamp to attach to a chainstay bridge near the cranks, that works quite well.
• There a thin clamp that you are supposed to bend around the rear mudguard,which attaches to the brake mount point on the seatstays. This works, well, not so well.
• The stays which hold the back end of the mudguard are quite solid. The rear of the mudguard where the stays attach is indeed held quite securely.

Full length guards? Suspension forks?

38mm P clip to the rescue!

22mm P clip to the rescue!

There is this persistent rumour you can't fit a full length guard to a suspension fork. I'm aware these photos may upset any artistically sensitive readers, but anyway, armed with some rubber lined P Clips, the guard is on...

The 22mm clip is just the right size to be bent around the fork crown. Two 38mm clips keep the two stays in place. Ugly - but functional.

Does It Keep My Arse Dry?

Yes, very nicely. These are long enough to keep all the crap flung up by your tyres, away from where it shouldn't be (a long stripe up and down the back of your Versace Suit). No complaints there.

Problems

Yes, problems, two rather big problems.

Seatstay clamp from above...

...and underneath.

Number one, the seatstay clamp is crap. It is very thin and prone to breaking (vibration has killed several of these for me). After a while, the edges (which you have to bend yourself, once everything is lined up) invariably deform a bit, and the mudguard starts rattling. Of course this could be solved by making a more solid bracket yourself and bolting it to the mudguard, or just bolting the mudguard direct to the brake bridge (if the bridge has a hole in the correct place), but, (1) neither of those are "as designed", and (2) possibly involve buying more hardware (thus negating the price advantage of these guards) and/or drilling through the mudguard. I realise this particular issue is an almost impossible problem for SKS to solve (making a fixture, which could attach to any point on the guard, which works for people with no tools and no will to mess around drilling and bolting things) - so I wouldn't deduct many points for this one. However, a rubberised bracket would really really really help stop the rattling, and how much extra would that cost? French Connection UK all (ie nothing).

...there it is.

Spot the bodge...

Number two, the stays at the back of the guard. The ones that are there, are great - nice and solid. Problem is, there is only two of them - one per side. The mudguard is long enough and flexible enough that it needs two stays each side - one right at the back (horizontal), and one half way toward the brake bridge (vertical). Without that middle one, the guard has a very long and unsupported section, and it wobbles - a lot. This is basically a huge design flaw, and all of the other full length guards in the SKS range have two stays, so why this only has one mystifies me. Maybe its so they can have a shit one in the range in order to sell you a better one for more money. Serious negative points here. In order to fix this section of the rear guard, on one bike I now have a long bolt put through the guard (where the middle stay should be) and a small P clip attached to a pannier rack - a complete bodge which needed another few bits of hardware (i.e. it cost a little bit more cash), and you don't have to point out it looks amateur, because I know that.

By comparison, the front guard works fine, the stays hold it securely, no complaints there.

Overall

I don't think I'll buy these particular guards again. They can be made to work OK, but straight out of the packet I'm not that impressed, its the rear guard, its got that crap bracket and it wobbles. The quality of manufacturing is perfectly ok and other SKS guards are great - but not these.

Next time I need guards, I will spend a bit of extra cash and get the next ones up in the SKS range, the Bluemels or Chromoplasts. The Bluemels look identical - but have a proper complete set of rear stays (i.e. two per side). The Chromoplast guards are another notch up, the same design & fittings as the Bluemels, but the plastic guard is a bit more solid.