Studded Snow Tires and Fenders for a Mountain Bicycle

[Don52]

For exercise I like to ride my road bicycle at least four times per week on various paved trails in the area. In the past during the winter, I would exercise in my community center gym instead of riding outside. This year the gym is closed due to Covid, so I decided to ride my bicycle outside on the trails as much as I could during the winter here in Michigan. The only problem is that there is often ice on the bridges and other areas of the trail that are shaded. To solve the problem, I purchased and installed fenders and studded snow tires on my mountain bicycle. It turns out that high end mountain bicycles aren’t designed to accept fenders so a little customization was required.

The first two pictures show the front and rear fenders mounted on the bicycle.

1. Rear fender


2. Front fender


The next picture shows a close up of the rear studded tire. This tire has about 210 studs in it. You can purchase more aggressive single-track tires that have double this number of studs, but unfortunately, these more aggressive tires are very slippery on concrete.

3. Close up of studded tire


The first customization was to drill and tap the bicycle to accept the rear fender support

4. Rear fender support


5. Top support for rear fender

[Don52]

Unfortunately, there was no lug to attach the right side of the front fender so I made a clip to attach to the shock absorber. The first step was to bend the bracket. I selected a rod that was smaller than the desired diameter to wrap the bracket in anticipation of some spring back. To avoid corrosion, I selected some 1/16” thick 304 stainless that I had on hand.

6. Bending bracket


The next step was to make a fixture to hold the bracket during welding. The bracket acts as a heat sink, which makes it a lot easier to weld without over heating the stainless steel. The bracket also protects the back side of both pieces from oxidation. (The front sided is protected by the Argon shield) The first step for the bracket construction was to turn a bar of Aluminum that was a slip fit on the ID of the bracket.

7. Turning bar


The next step was to weld a lug to back up the tab. The following picture shows the lug welded to the turned bar, with the loose pieces in place.

8. Fixture ready for welding


The next two picture shows the welded bracket in and out of the bracket.

9. Welding done


10. Completed bracket

[Don52]

Here is a picture of the bracket mounted on the right side of the shock absorber with the right side support of the fender attached to it.

11. Bracket mounted on shock absorber


And here is a picture of my mountain bicycle on the Macomb Orchard trail taken last week.

12. Bicycle on Trail


Here are two maps that show where the trail is located in Michigan.

13. Macomb Orchard Trail map-1


14. Macomb Orchard Trail map-2


Last but not least are three pictures taken from the Macomb Orchard Trail during the summer.

15. Macomb Orchard Trail -1

[Don52]

And a few more pictures from the trail taken in the summer.

16. Macomb Orchard Trail -2


17. Macomb Orchard Trail -3

[ryanjones2150]

Take your rod and reel and do some fishin in that creek in the summer?

[Don52]

Take your rod and reel and do some fishin in that creek in the summer?

It’s funny but I almost always see people fishing from the bridge where that picture was taken or from the banks just below the bridge. The picture was taken looking south. This is what it looks like looking north.

[Don52]

Yesterday I stopped at the bridge and took a few pictures. Quite a different look from summer.

-Don

[ryanjones2150]

Probably didn’t see anyone fishin either.