I’m still sick. No more rides to report.

But I wanted to revisit my fender problems. My front fender developed a crack on my ride to Tunkhannock, during a bumpy chipseal descent. These are Velo Orange 48mm fluted aluminum fenders that I bought in mid-August of last year and have about 2000 miles on them. The crack is where the fender attaches to the L bracket that joins it to the fork crown. Here are some photos of the damage.

Whenever a piece of gear fails, it makes me think: was this a defective sample? Did I install it wrong or otherwise abuse it? Or is it an inferior product?

In this case, I honestly don’t know. I installed the fenders with leather washers, although I realized when I removed the fender that I did not put leather washers on the underside of the two bolts above — only on the top of the fender, by the bracket. I do a lot of riding on gravel roads and a bit of trail riding on this bike, so maybe the fenders have sustained more vibration than normal. But I don’t think I used them in ways they weren’t intended to be used. I sent an e-mail to VO to see if they have any thoughts, and to find out if they are under warranty.

My experience with these fenders has been mixed. They look fantastic, but I found them very difficult and time-consuming to install. I justified it by telling myself that they would last for many years. Now, even if VO replaces the front fender (which I doubt), I have lost a lot of confidence in them. I think aluminum may just be too brittle for this application.

I’ve also noticed that my fenders show a lot of wear. I’m not someone who babies his bicycle. I ride on all kinds of surfaces, I lean my bike on the ground, or up against things, without thinking about it too much. And I sometimes carry my bicycle on a trunk rack on my car. All these things can cause some wear on a bicycle, and that includes the fenders.

Fortunately, I don’t care if my bicycle looks pristine. However, this fender looks beat up enough for me to think that maybe they’re not rugged enough for my needs. Looking at the photo below, man, that left stay is bent.

I’ll see what the folks at VO say, but I assume this damange won’t be covered under a warranty. I plan on getting some Planet Bike Cascadia or SKS P* fenders instead. I have SKSes on my old mountain bike-turned-commuter, and I’ve had a great experience with them. And I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Cascadias as well. I’m leaning toward them, mostly since they have built-in mud flaps.

I’ve been experimenting with tire pressure lately. I still have the stock tires on my LHT, nice and wide 700x37C Continental Contact tires, with a slight tread on them. They work well: great puncture protection, and good traction on paved/gravel/dirt roads, and light trails. But they’re heavy and I’ve always thought they have a bit of a harsh ride.

The recommended max tire pressure for these tires is 85 psi. I’ve been running them at about 75 psi on the front tire, and 80 on the rear, since I got them — without giving it much thought. However, I’ve recently been thinking more about tire pressure, and I felt like I was running them too hard. So I tried a couple rides at around 65 psi in the front, and 70 in the rear. This made the Trucker’s ride even smoother, and improved my traction — but the tires were still firm enough that I didn’t have to worry about pinch flats.

Checking the late, great Sheldon Brown’s site, I see that he has a table of recommended tire pressures. It’s as follows (as seen on this page).

I think I can comfortably take the front tire down to about 60 psi, and this should yield an even smoother ride. When it comes time to replace these tires, I’ll probably go with something more supple — possibly Panaracer Paselas — but I’m really pleased with how much better the bike feels simply by lowering the tire pressure.

What tire model/width/pressure do you use? Have you experimented with different tire pressures?

I didn’t ride much last week, as I was sick. However, I did find some time to work on the Trucker a bit. It needed a good, thorough cleaning, and the handlebar tape was wearing out. Last time, I cleaned the bike with Simple Green, and it worked well, but this time I used regular Dawn dish soap. I think the Dawn worked even better.

Nearly every time I work on my bike, I mess something up. This time, I lost some parts when I took the chain off to clean it. I thought I had only lost part of the master link, but it turns out I lost a few other parts as well. I looked for them for quite a while in the yard, but could not find them. Unfortunately, I had to buy a new chain. The old one only had about 1900 miles on it. What a waste! Well, now I know to be more careful next time, and I know what pieces to watch for.

When I went to buy new handlebar tape, I decided to try something different. I liked the Cinelli natural cork tape I had before, but it’s expensive and the shops I checked didn’t have it anyway. I settled on a roll of RavX red cork/gel tape. In the box, it looked like a deepish red. I had a harder time wrapping the bars than usual. I think this tape is thicker and a little softer and it doesn’t stay in place quite as well.

Once I had the tape on the bars, it appeared much brighter shade of red than I thought.

No worries, I planned to finish the job with some twine and shellac anyway. I had to finish both ends with twine; with barend shifters, you can’t put the tape in the ends of the bars, and it kept unraveling. The twine holds it in place nicely. A few layers of amber shellac helped the color a bit. It’s still not quite the deep red I had in mind, but it’s growing on me.

Even though I had more difficulty than usual, I enjoyed changing the handlebar tape. It’s a relatively simple and inexpensive task, but it significantly changes the look and feel of the bike.

I’m fairly happy with how the bars turned out. What do you think?