Bike commuting can be a glorious thing. Rolling past traffic, getting the muscles moving, feeling the wind in your face as you pick up speed: glorious. Not so glorious: wet roads. Arriving at work with a lovely, muddy rooster tail makes for a long day. Fenders are the obvious solution and help keep the road gunk off even when wearing the appropriate wet weather clothing, so you arrive at work still looking like a professional instead of a homeless contender for the Tour circa 1993.
But what’s a commuter to do with a traditional road bike? As anyone who has tried to install them knows, road bikes don’t like fenders. At least not the neat, tidy and reliable bolt on sort. The seatstays and fork legs are often too narrow to fit fenders, the tires are too close to the frame and then there are those pesky caliper brakes. And you don’t really want to have to use flimsy plastic fenders, do you? So when a cheap fender won’t do, go for the Reacharound…
The bike junkies at Portland’s River City Bicycles were wanting their cake (fast road bike commuting) and wanting to eat it, too (staying somewhat clean) when they came up with the Reacharound fender bracket system for road bikes. The Reacharound brackets do exactly what they say: reach around the constriction created by the brakes and frame, allowing the installer to cut a set of fenders and install them fore and aft of the constriction. Included with the brackets are install instructions and advice on how to split the fenders. If these are for you and you need a different type of helping hand, any decent bike shop should have no problem installing them for you. However they end up on your bike, the $15 Reacharounds will keep you smiling when things get messy.
