talloplanic views

By Arell

The dampproof of the pudding

For some reason bicycle mudguard manufacturers are mostly all useless at supplying good mudflaps.  SKS, I'm looking at you.  The best one that comes fitted on a bike is probably from Brompton, who makes a front mudflap using of a sort of vinyl fabric, but it's still not long enough to cope with Scottish rain that pours in torrents off the back of a tyre.  Lots of enterprising individuals with their small cottage industries, and their piles of organic leather and free range truck tarp and hipster-approved waxed cotton, make proper mudflaps. They are purchased and appreciated by those who are mindful not just of the longevity of their bike's bottom bracket but of the rider behind who would otherwise spend all their time looking at the voluminous spray coming off the back wheel of the insouciant rider in front.

I have neither leather nor truck tarp, nor finest waxed cotton, nor am I a horn-rimmed glasses-wearing fixie-riding sourdough-baking cottage industrialist…but do have knocking around a gigantic roll of damp proof course that I think I purloined from Dad and never gave back.  DPC is, well, waterproof, and it's very very tough.  And if you happen to have a hundred metres of it, you can make lots of mudflaps.  So many in fact that I think I could justify owning about 300 different bikes just to put them on.

This super long one took all of five minutes to make for Dad's bike.  I know it'll work because it's based on the same pattern as the original one I had on mine.

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