Thanks for sharing this. This makes my waiting for the Berthoud composite fenders more exciting. Peter White said it will arrive tomorrow. I'm going to use it in rejuvenating my Voodoo Loa titanium cross bike.
-- Rene -----Original Message----- From: rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com [mailto:rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Earl Grey Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 7:02 AM To: RBW Owners Bunch Subject: [RBW] SKS/Berthoud fender review I bought these a while back from Peter White. They are SKS plastic/ aluminium composite fenders with Berthoud aluminium single stays (the Germans, like the Brits, write it aluminium). I have bought nothing but SKS fenders since the early 90s, but I never thought the stays were that great, and the quick release bracket for the front is kinda ugly, too. (Yes, I know, safety is good, but Berthoud and Honjo have come up with a much more elegant and presumably equally safe solution.) Lastly, being able to mount them without cutting the stays to size may be convenient, but uncut stays IMHO ruin the lines of a nice bike more than anything else. So I still cut the stays on my SKSs to size, even though sawing stainless steel with a hacksaw is not all that much fun. Metal fenders seemed a bit too ostentatious for my budget Sam, and I thought I might splurge on those a couple of years down the road for a make-over for the Sam. So the SKS/Berthouds seemed like a good compromise between cheap/functional/quiet and beautiful. The front fender seems longer forward of the fork crown when compared with a regular SKS as shown on the 700C AHH on rivbike.com, and the rear end of the front fender also looks a little longer. The rear fender seems equally long. The longer front complements a front rack better, and presumably better protects the front rack's contents, as well as the feet. Getting a good fender line with the 42mm fenders and Jack Browns took 3 spacers, as the bike can fit at least 50mm fenders and 40mm tires (see http://tinyurl.com/yfou2ud). I also discovered that for an optimal fender line, the spacer at the chainstay bridge should be cut so that its back edge angles forward, allowing the fender to arch forward as it comes away from the chainstay bridge. In other words, the eyelet at the back of the chainstay bridge points to somewhere below the center of the hub, because the chainstays flare vertically from front to back where the kickstand plate is attached, angling the kickstand plate down relative to the direction of the chainstays. I guess this could be finessed at the factory by custom bending the angle between the kickstand plate and the fender eyelet, but probably not on a $1000 frame. :) Or, you could screw a long bolt into the chainstay bridge, and pull up on the end of the bolt until it points at the hub. But I didn't think of that till afterwards. :) Overall I am very pleased with the clean look of the finished fenders. If you don't cut the Berthoud stays, the install is almost as straight forward as regular SKS fenders, and cutting the stays is actually easier as there are only 4 total, and they are aluminium. The only complication is that there is no bracket for the seatstay bridge, which means that one hole *must* be drilled here (there is a pre- drilled hole for the chainstay bridge bolt, and the front fender has an L-bracket for the fork crown bolt). Of course, mounting the fender to the bottom of the front rack also required drilling a hole. That said, drilling these holes is quite straight forward if you first make a pilot hole with a hammer and nail so that the drill bit doesn't wander off target. Cheers, Gernot -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
