Agreed. I should have written leading or front edge. Especially when
mounting tire wipers, they should go on the trailing (front) edge of the
fender, so they don't get sucked into the fender when bigger debris hits
them... I apologize for any confusion.
Jan Heine
Bicycle Quarterly
Time for one last correction. Debris hits the leading or _rear_ edge of the
fender and either must go through or be slow enough that it falls back onto
the road without collapsing the fender. Tire wipers are mounted on the
trailing or _front_ edge of the fender.
Sorry for the continued
Most of the classic French randonneur machines had very *generous* fender
clearances, and that, together with the wide, and thus stiff, fenders,
seems to be the reason why there are no reports of fender accidents.
Generally, more clearance is better. At some point, it doesn't look nice,
and
Not to nitpick, but my engineering background compels me to explain that
when looking at fender/wheel dynamics, the trailing edge would be,
counterintuitively, the front edge of the fender, not the rear edge.
Aerodynamically, trailing edge refers to the rear of an object going
through a wind
I’ve read Jan’s article and various emails and comments about fender clearance,
but I haven’t seen anyone address the possibility that tight fender clearances
improve safety by helping to *exclude* objects from being caught between the
fender and tire. If I have 1cm of clearance (about a half
I think Eric's points are very well worth considering. The tighter
tolerances leave little room for error. If you load your bike in the back
of the car, there is a good chance that the fender will be knocked out of
your perfect line. If you are prepared to live with that tight tolerance
