mudgaurds...im now a believer...

Yep they make your mountainbike look crap...
they rattle sometimes...
they can fall off when your bikes on the rear carrier of your car...
sometimes those rear ones that are seatpost mounted turn sideways and when you try to get on your bike and haven't noticed your leg hits them and you end up sprawled over your bike cursing...
and if none of these have happened to you then you have been riding home from a typical UK winterdays offroading with a soaked and if windy freezing butt..
or having to change clothes in the cold at the side of your car before driving home... but for around £15-£20 you could go home smiling...even if your bike does look crap with mudgaurds fitted...
im riding my pugsley again with cheap lightweight racks and crud catchers to stay dry...

last weeks The Bike Chain Edinburgh shop midweek rideout was down at Glentress,17 of us made it,riding around under clear Sky's after a days torrential rain,on the On One 456 with no mudgaurds i was soaked through with eyes full of grit,

then i froze changing to drive home,friend Paul didn't have a change of clothes so just left half the mud all over my wee fiesta -:)
so mudgaurds ordered for that bike now...
which leaves the 29er,my mainstay trailbike...didn't want a seatpost mounted rear gaurd that would move about,but i just got something this week really neat for the back of it...found and ordered via a STW forum thread...these mount on the rear canti mounts...packaging had no English and was Dutch and German foremost...and a diagram which would make any Ikea product easy to build but managed to mount it up...


this was the state of the bike having returned last night from this midweek TBC rideout on a saturated Pentlands 2hour+ ride,i strapped the bike on the back of the car and jumped in with a clean,dry and still warm backside...bliss
also if filming with a helmet camera or rear facing/bike mounted camera then less chance of water on the lenses, and as well as the same for eyes also cow/sheep and dog poo...so who cares what they look like,they work!,
been riding my old Cannondale commuter for years with SKS full mudgaurds and never thought anything about it...

imagine riding a motorcycle without them..or a car...
weird the long acceptance of them on my mountainbikes eh?

Back to last nights ride and its real hard trying to film in the dark...


i have now worked out that you need to film with riders close enough that there lights shine on each other and through pine woods where there lights shine on them adding again more visual...i did often go ahead and film but the results are really dark...funny thing is film makes the lights look a bit dull but they are really really bright..2000+ lumen's from a Trout light its like day light riding with these...
For those readers living outside of the UK nightride mountainbiking is really big here...lots of MTB Forums and bike shops organise night rides and of course our trail centres are often as busy in dark evenings mid week as during daylight...
we passed several groups last night and seen the lights of others up in the pitch black of the Pentlands...
its great fun and another aspect of biking...just mind the hip flask -:)
guess we will be the GENERATION remembered for going Night riding on MTBs...