Friday, September 28, 2007

Taifun Fender Fiasco


I am a hack when it comes to installing anything slightly custom. I'm fine as long as everything was designed to go together and someone has supplied me all the parts along with some nifty detailed directions. So it was not uber surprising when my Taifun's rear fender went renegade on me last Sunday. The good news was this happened just outside one of my favourite LBS. The bad news was the fact they had just closed and once those impenetrable steel shutters go down you are not going to get their attention. So I bent and poked and spoke harshly to the rear fender. Convincing it to stay in one place and not rub the wheel too badly. This worked well enough to get me home without further drama.

Once I was back in my warm apartment I took the whole thing off and reinstalled it using not one, but two of the brackets that normally hold the fender to the seatstay bridge on a DF bike. I can do this because I've now pretty much used up 3 sets of SKS fenders on my two Challenge bents. Not sure how that happened, but at least I've got some spare hardware out of the deal. Now that my rear fender is attached at 4 different spots it is seems a bit less wobbly than before. Not exactly a "pro" job, but hopefully it will hold together until I get something more solid dreamed up.

Thank God for zipties & electrical tape!

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