The Taifun Redux

My Taifun has been off the road for quite a while now. One parts fiasco after another stacked up to keep this fine machine on the stand for way too long....=-( However, the wait was worth it. She is sporting new wheels & tires, new rear der & new cranks as well as a new chain. I also borrowed the side bars from Sarah's Hurricane to see how they'd work with my Radical Designs panniers - they make a great luggage combo BTW.

The last thing I had to do was mount fenders on the Taifun.

It took a long time for the SKS fenders to arrive and when they did I was missing some critical mounting hardware. Luckily I was able to steal what I needed from a set of SKS fenders meant for one of my DF bikes.

As you can see it took some crafty bending of the fender struts to get around the disc brake calipers. I used some electrical zipties that have eyelets to attach the fender to the rear of the Taifun. It works pretty well, but it is not as solid as it would be mounted directly to the frame.

I had to totally rig up a homemade solution to attach the front portion of the rear fender as there is no bridge across the swing arm on the Taifun. Again it works well enough, but is not as solid as a hard mount to the frame.

Overall I am pretty satisfied with the result. They look nice and give me the freedom to ride despite a gloomy forecast. I won't lie. I'm not going to start a ride in the pouring rain, but I will take my chances on those 50-60% rain days now.

I would like the rear fender to be mounted more solidly and I have some ideas about how to achieve this. I am hoping a visit to Jeremy's shop will help solve the problem. In the meantime she is ready to roll rain or shine...=-)