Bo, here's another data point. I rode my Rambouillet with Honjo hammered fenders from the Fall of '05 till mid summer of '13 when the rear fender broke at the seat stay bridge. They never rattled until just before the break - or maybe actually between the crack and the break. They were installed by a very good and experienced mechanic.
I live on a dirt road in a state with notoriously bad roads so the Ram saw its share of rough surfaces. In contrast I installed Honjo fenders on an Ebisu, which I used as a commuter on 30 miles of mostly rough surface every day and broke 2 fender in 4 years. After that I went back to the original mechanic; installed Bertoud steel fenders, and never had a problem again. Proper installation is critical (and not beyond us DIY folks) but if you are doing a lot of rough riding and not concerned about the extra weight, steel is the way to go. My wife broke an SKS plastic fender when a pine cone kicked up between the rear tire and fender. That installation required a wide gap at the chain stay because her '84 Sequoia has vertical drop outs. I think the break away feature of plastic fenders is crucial in that kind of application, but with a properly installed metal fender on vertical drop outs there should be no more than 10 or 15 mm between the tire and fender, which offers little space for sticks or pine cones. My wife's new Betty (the discontinued demo) came with the cream Longboards which I thought looked pretty nice so I decided to put them on the Ram in place of the broken Honjo. It turned out I don't really like the color combination of the blue frame and cream fenders; I think the metal looked much nicer. I put plastic fenders on the travel tandem because I thought it would be easier to fit in the suitcase. In reality the tandem is much more often partially disassembled and put into the back of our Prius. The result has been that the fenders are constantly out of whack; I'll probably replace them when time & money get aligned. Michael On Thursday, July 24, 2014 1:04:47 PM UTC-4, bo richardson wrote: > > i was riding my 54 Rambouillet 700c downhill recently. > there was a rattle from the front fender > it got worse suddenly > i got my hands on the bars and the front fender > mounting hardware came loose > and rolled between the tire and the fender > this tore the fender off and threw it in front of the bike > Questions > > the fenders were vo metal > not hammered not round > whatever the third option was > > they never fit especially well and were noisy > > is this the nature of fenders? > when i replace the fender > is there some option > others have liked better? > or should i order another pair of vos and just replace the front? > jack browns for tires > > thanks for the expertise > > bo > bellingham > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
