Stupid Kalkhoff front mudguards

[danfoto]

Yesterday was the first day that The Lady Wife and I got to ride our new Agattus on wet/muddy roads, and we are not impressed with the front mudguards on these bikes. They are way too short.

I've just been faffing about with bits of rubber sheet and so forth, but I'm getting nowhere because of the length of mudflap needed. The bottom end of the guard is only just past a horizontal drawn through the front axle, which makes it about 8" shorter than it needs to be.

The answer would seem to be this mudguard LONGBOARD - mudguards - SKS Germany but I don't fancy my chances of getting two front ones (only) at a sensible price by mail order.

Apart from the length needed, whatever I come up with needs to look sensible on almost £2K-worth of brand new bicycle, so I'm putting this problem out to better brains than mine.

And Scott of 50 Cycles, if you see this, please try and persuade Derby to do their punters a favour and use the Longboard instead of these meanies ...

 

[Biged]

I have an Agattu and was going to fit one of these Brompton Front Mudflap | Evans Cycles but never did, just stopped cycling through the crap

 

[flecc]

It's a common problem on bikes today, style to retain a sporty look rather than practicality.

 

[NRG]

Yep, danfoto, this was one of the complaints about my PCS when I got it along with the pedals being too small. 50 cycles where going to send the feedback to Kalkhoff but I've no idea if the new bikes are any better. I fitted some longer guards and added a small mud flap to the front, still not quite long enough but better than before.

Although still not long enough to prevent this:

 

[andyh2]

Would this help?
SKS Long Mudflap

 

[danfoto]

Would this help?
SKS Long Mudflap

Oh, top man! That's got to be worth a try. Thank you

 

[danfoto]

And in case it's any help to other Kalkhoff owners vexed by this shortcoming, those SKS long mudflaps are worth having. They effectively extend the front guard by 4", and fitting's a doddle. Remove the original plastic wossname from the end of the guard, slide the mudflap onto the end in its place, and fasten using the supplied widget through the existing hole.

There's two widths, we got the wider ones, and it looks like SJS finally got their act together with delivery times 'cos ours arrived 48 hours after ordering!

 

[eddieo]

Jez.......A likle mud

 

[andyh2]

Glad to hear they do the job Dan, I've been umming and ahhing about getting some for my Pro-connect.

 

[Kenny]

[
There's two widths, we got the wider ones, and it looks like SJS finally got their act together with delivery times 'cos ours arrived 48 hours after ordering![/QUOTE]

Fitted one this morning. I ordered the 42-45mm ones and they are a perfect fit on my Pro Connect mudguard. I had to drill a 5mm hole for the plastic fastener though, as there was no existing hole on the mudguard.

Looks good. Thanks for the link Andy.

 

[amigafan2003]

Fitted one this morning. I ordered the 42-45mm ones and they are a perfect fit on my Pro Connect mudguard. I had to drill a 5mm hole for the plastic fastener though, as there was no existing hole on the mudguard.

Looks good. Thanks for the link Andy.

Don't do what a colleague did and drill through the tyre as well ;-)

 

[Kenny]

Don't do what a colleague did and drill through the tyre as well ;-)

Have done stupider things in my time.

Slipped a thin piece of wood between the mudguard and tyre before drilling in this case.

 

[apples]

no probs with our agattu 'mud'guards here in spain, i thought they were there to keep the sun off the tyres !!

 

[Pikpilot]

Just found this forum when looking for a solution to mud kicked up from the bottom of the front mudguard, so I have now joined you.
My bike is a Raleigh Velo Cite (great pedelec bike) on which I have done 1250 miles since the end of June last year. We have cycle paths round here on non-tarmac ex railway tracks and in the autumn the crushed leaves and mud really caked on the down-tube and bottom bracket. [I have a photo but don't know how to add it here]

I measured up the SKS mudguard and it is 48mm. The two sizes of flap available from SJS (of SKS manufacture) are 42-45 and 50-60 so I looked on the SKS Germany site for a mid size one but could not find the flaps at all. This week I ordered the smaller one from SJS on the basis that I could always trim the sides of my mudguards back a bit.

When it arrived I found it would nearly fit but was too tight to push up far enough. On trying to do so the thin rubber web on the back of the flap stretched too far and split vertically through the hole.

It now needed some support over the web to make it fit. Solution was to cut a section from a thin plastic container of approximately the same radius as the mudguard and about one inch wide. I drilled a 5.5 mm hole through it and used this as a reinforcement strip when assembling the flap to the mudguard using the provided fastener

Success! Looks like it was made for it and fits really tight.

Thanks guys for sharing your experiences and so fixing my problem.

(Leading a group of 12 cyclists down said railway track tomorrow so it should be a good test).

 

[Jonah]

Got the same problem with my Sahel Compacts. Have just ordered some of the mudflaps from SJS, hopefully reduce on cleaning!

 

[grldtnr]

A simple soloution should you have some old mudgaurds ,would be to cut and po rivet extra length on the Current ones, complete with stays for more stifness

 

[jackhandy]

100mm dpc does the job on our bikes, but then.....

All 3 bikes didn't cost me 2 grand