Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Planet Bike Cascadia ATB Fenders

Update 2: MEC has rec'd their initial stock of the PB Cascadia fenders. I'll be throwing a set on my Thorn shortly and will report back on how they work out.

Update: I spoke with a guy in the cycling dept at the Calgary MEC who told me that they'll be getting their stock of these fenders in at the end of Feb.

I've been on the hunt for some fenders for my Thorn. I was hoping to get some metal fenders for the ultimate in durability, but that seems to be unlikely in the width I need [60mm-65mm]. The one source I have found that has this size, Wald, doesn't seem real keen on letting Canadians know where they can be purchased. Nothing new here - Alberta might as well be a province of Bangladesh for all some US vendors seem to care about selling their wares to us. Sorry - I won't get started on that diatribe.

A couple guys on the Surly LHT & CC List mentioned Planet Bike Cascadia fenders so I checked out the PB site and low and behold they have some pretty sweet 26" fenders that will fit 1.75" - 2" tires. Exactly what I need to run Marathon XRs. MEC will even be carrying them in a month or so and the PB guy I spoke to [Eric] let me know I could order straight from them if I needed them sooner. He even knew where Calgary was - OMG!...=-)

I normally use SKS fenders on my bikes and have several sets in play. It will be interesting to see how these fenders stack up. They have a long mud flap built in which is nice and avoids having to cobble something together from a milk jug. I shall report back as soon as I can get my hand on some.

2 comments:

runawayscreaming said...

The distributor for Wald in Canada is Norco. However, those Wald mudguards are absolutely brutish and heavy. You are better off with the Planet Bike mudguards.

It's too bad Honjo doesn't make a 26" mudguard more than 4.5 cm wide but I would use a 4.5 cm mudguard for a tire up to 5 cm (2") anyway. Most 2" tires are really 1.9" and most liquids thrown up by the tire come off the center of the tire and not the edges.

The nice thing about the Honjo's is that their rolled edge keeps rain from flying back.

Anyway, the Planet Bike mudguards will be fine. Just make sure you leave enough room for glorpy mud clearance, although at that time of the year you should have pretty plush road conditions.

Doug said...

Vik, I have two pairs of Cascadia fenders. 26'ers on my Xtracycle and 700c on my Cross Check. Love 'em. I will have another new pair on my new LHT this week.