Err towards the practical

   One neat thing about the Hunqapillar is it's versitility.  

 It can do and put up with about anything.  

I bought it to be a long distance touring bike and transferred most of the components and accessories from my LHT when I built it.

I could switch it into a single tracking beauty by removing the fenders and rack 

and adding some 52mm knobbies.

It's great, was great, but then I found out how comfortable and versitile the Bosco Bars are,

 so the swapping the old fashioned drops for the Bullmoose Boscos made sense.

Then I ran across these nifty 29er fenders from SKS 

which made sense for winter fenders with studs.

 Plenty of options for this bike.  It is really a fun ride, whenever I decide to just take a metric ride through the country side by myself, this is the ride. 

Not long ago I saw  this little incident   discussed on the Rivendell website.

You have to skip the Dylan song and the rambling discussion of the Oxford Comma but you get to a story of a horribly bent and mangled fork.  It looks as if the rider rode straight into a wall at 30 mph, but the fact is/was that a large stick got caught by the fender, the stays trapped it into the tire, the rider went over the bars and the fork was/is totally mangled.  Now those of us who ride with fenders, especially full, long ones with mudflaps to boot, are used to picking twigs and leaves out from time to time.  I had not thought about the consequences of catching a large branch at speed.  My son had caught one in his front fender once, but he had the SKS fenders which have a quick release feature built into the stay.

It released, the stick fell out, he lost his composure and was confused for a moment, but that was all.

All this made me think more about the beautiful VO Zepillen fenders I use on the Hunq.  Picture going down a 10% descent on a fully loaded bike weighing around 65 lbs when a large stick gets caught in the fender.

I'm thinking of a very uncomfortable mess, at the best.

So, I was reassessing the fenders and the plastic slip-ons I had been using in the winter have become more appealing.  They are easier to put on and take off, provide plenty of clearance and don't even need stays. This is all great but those are really cheap fenders.  Not only are they inexpensive, they look cheap.  Just plain ole' matte black plasticized rubber really.

So to satisfy my vanity, and not allow the Hunq to look like a Wal-Mart 29er, I painted them.

I cleaned them up, covered them with a coat of automotive primer, and three coats of a Valspar all purpose spray paint, then baked the finish onto them.

 A trick I learned somewhere in my travels.  When painting something with the rattle can, use the back window of the car on a hot afternoon to bake and cure the finish.  

Really, the finish is better and more durable.

Boy did I get lucky on the color!

That's about as close to a perfect match as you can get from the shelf.

I replaced the back rack with a classically practical Pletscher Athlete

and added

a Riv mudflap that matches the bags I use.
I'm happy, feel safe, my vanity is satisfied, and the fenders are really practical as well as cool looking.

They will cover up to 50 mm road tires without trouble, and, if I want to use the Fat Alberts to go single trackin', the fenders slide right off, no muss, no fuss no bolts'.