Wide fenders for a cruiser bike. Myth or reality?

Today I’m going to tell you about Sunlite fenders and how cool bike fenders can be. Chased!

Have you ever struggled to find wide bike fenders? I did when I was looking for them for a fat bike. In the case of a fat bike, everything turned out to be easy and simple, because there are no narrow wings. And what if your bike is a classic cruiser?

Historically, if it is still possible to buy a bicycle of this type here, a real problem arises with the fenders. The fact is that the direction is not particularly popular, which means that there is almost no offer. One of the options was wings from the Electra company. The option is good, but it was also impossible to find them. And I went to look for it.

Search

Where can I start my search? That’s right – in the historical homeland of cruisers – in America! The popularity of this type of bicycle is much higher there than in our region. Manufacturers also develop many accessories for these bikes. One such manufacturer is Sunlite. On Amazon, the model can be found as SUNLITE Cruiser Fenders, 26 x 2.125, and the price of this miracle is not less than $38.95. I was a little smarter and bought them on eBay from a seller with the nickname bikewagon . I don’t know how relevant the link will be at the time you read the article, but the same lot . These wings cost him $32.98 with delivery. Have you ordered yet? Well done, because I didn’t have time to tell you about the reasons why they should be taken!

Kit

Our kit consists of two full-size fenders and 4 mounts. In addition to them, the kit also includes a bag with bolts:

It is difficult to say whether the bolts will rust and how quickly, but I would like to believe that the product is of high quality and they will not be covered with rust. Each bolt is screwed with its own nut, that is, the fastening is not one-time (for wife’s, three-wheel rear fenders are screwed with screws, for example). The fasteners themselves are supposed to be fixed on the axis, which is facilitated by the wide holes of the lugs:

However, there were some nuances, but I will tell you more about this later.

Appearance and performance

The wings look as chic as they can possibly look. This is what one of the wings looks like from above:

Having trouble understanding the width? Let’s measure!

The width of the wing is almost 80 mm! For comparison, “by eye”, it is a third wider than on the Schwinn Town&Country and almost twice as wide as wife’s on the large one (her wings are plus or minus standard). Although the manufacturer states that these wings are suitable for a width of 2.125, I think that they will easily fit under a size of 2.3-2.5.

In the rear wing, the attachment to the frame is processed very qualitatively, without sharp parts and peeling paint.

The metal edges are also very well finished and you have to work really hard to cut them.

If you look at the front wing from the front, where the mounting eye is, you can see depressions on the sides. They will allow you to install these wings even in a rather narrow fork (what can I say about my two-crown fork).

The rear wing also has such a notch. It is used so that the bicycle chain, which can be used in a system with many stars, does not touch the fender in any of its positions.

Although you can’t tell from the photo, due to the focusing distance, the new wing is similar in size to the original one from my Felt.

In general, the quality of execution suggests that the wings were made at more than one factory. The form is similar almost 1 in 1. But enough about forms and types, let’s move on to the installation!

Installation

As you understand, installation does not cause any particular problems. With one caveat – motor-wheel. The fact is that I have a regular planetary bush installed at the back and there were no problems with the width of the mounting hole.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the front fender, which was mounted on a slightly non-standard fork (we all understand the design of the double crown, right?). In addition to the fork itself, there was also a problem with the wheel motor, the axis of which is somewhat wider than the axis of a conventional wheel hub. And here the dremel came to our aid!

From such standard hole, we made such:

In general, we solve the problem with an ordinary round file, but it takes a long time. The work with a dremel took literally 5-10 minutes. The quality of the mounting and its reliability was not affected too much, and we were able to install our fenders on the fork.

In addition to the nuts on the background, you can also be confused by the bottom mount. Let’s take a closer look at it:The damn double crown and disc brake did their job. I didn’t start messing around and just made two holes in one fastener, measuring the required width for fastening. The fork had 2 holes on both sides for bolts. This allowed me to bypass the disc brake and still secure the fender. It was decided not to cut off the very ends of the fasteners, but simply to bend them – so, in my opinion, it turned out neater.

Conclusions

Riding with fenders has become much more comfortable than without them. The rear wheel is completely covered, and the front one has stopped pouring dirt on the frame and legs. What is interesting – I immediately began to notice how many small pebbles are found on the road, which fly either into the frame or on our legs. This is especially true when using the front motor-wheel. At the same time, my two-wheel drive is worth it.

I personally could not find similar wings in our market. It should be taken into account that they will only fit bicycles designed for wide wheels. However, on bicycles like the same cruisers from Felt, they don’t put anything for the custom and the wings are the very minimum. In the previous post by the bike world, he was already with wings, since this post is written after the fact. Am I satisfied with the result on the wings and bike in general? It has fewer and fewer parts to indicate that it is a bicycle. This is bad from the point of view of the idea of ​​the bicycle, but… I just wanted to show that a conditionally “budget” electric bicycle can be not made of shit and sticks, but be completely “in style”. And let it not be 100% successful, but I like the result.

I highly recommend these fenders for purchase!