Submitted by
patrase
a Weekend Warrior
from Sydney Australia
Date Reviewed: March 1, 2011
Strengths: Easy to install, sturdy, seem impact resistant
Weaknesses: front bolt only barely long enough. Rear fender occasionaly bounced against rack, although i could have added some zip ties to solve the problem. I no longer run a rear rack so not a problem any more. I cant imagine the rear working on a dually. The front needs a hole in the crown or arch of your fork, so check before you buy
Bottom Line:
This review is for the Zefal Classsic MTB fenders. I am happy with these, they work well and are easy to install. Just wish the front bolt was a bit longer to mount my reelight on to. Would buy again. I think they are made in france, so you are possibly supporting 'fair trade' if you buy these, as opposed to some chinese made ones.
Strengths: Cheap. Quick & easy to clip on/cliff off. Good design.
Weaknesses: Cheap materials. Brittle.
Bottom Line:
Classic example of a good idea ruined by cheap manufacturing. After only 5-6 uses I knocked the back fender VERY SLIGHTLY with my foot getting on the bike and the hinge snapped. No good.
Submitted by
John
a Weekend Warrior
from Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Date Reviewed: February 11, 2007
Strengths: Keeps winter water, slush, snow, ice, salt, sand and gravel from putting a line down your backside (keeps your backside warm & dry).
Weaknesses: Front fender attachment is weak, The front fender arches so little that it rubs against the bottom of your down tube. No front fender means water on your front when hitting puddles at high speed (during winter thaw).
Bottom Line:
A great fender to keep your backside warm and dry for the four months I used it. I only used half of this fender kit. Bottom Line: The rear fender (only) did it's job well to give me comfortable daily winter bike rides.
Similar Products Used: None. Just took feet off pedals, lifted them up and hoped for the best. Had a back-pack on to absorb water & debris.
Bike Setup: 1995 Raleigh Matterhorn (rigid/15 speed) used fender during (winter) December 1995 to March 1996.
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Jason P
a Weekend Warrior
from College Park, MD, USA
Date Reviewed: July 29, 2006
Strengths: Looks good, mounts/dismounts easily
Weaknesses: None.. until it finally snapped.
Bottom Line:
Review is for the Zefal Buggy front mudguard. Quite a good product, actually - had it for almost 5 years. Works well for daily riding / "commuting", jumping stairs and kerbs, urban ATB stuff. Keeps the mud and water off my face and clothes. Mounts easily (and is easily removed from) a threaded stub that is inserted into the bottom of the stem. Never had a problem with clearance from the tire / brakes / down-tube. I take both front and rear fenders off when I do serious off-roading - I'm going to get muddy anyway, so why have unnecessary appendages flapping around my bike and getting knocked askew by trees / bushes / rocks. It finally snapped in half yesterday when I fell off while attacking a 70-degree climb, and the handlebar spun around 180 degrees. It's flexible - flaps around noticeably - and I guess 5 years of cyclic fatigue loading finally fractured it. Overall, a good product. Remember to take it off when you mount it to a car rack - highway speeds will make it flap a *lot*!
Favorite Trail: Shaeffer Farms; Patapsco State Park
Duration Product Used: More than 3 years
Purchased At: The Bicycle Place
Bike Setup: Trek 4500 HT (2001 model) - standard configuration with Rockshox Jett FS, minor clip-ons and mods. Topeak Defender rear mudguard.
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Evan
a Cross Country Rider
from Cary, NC
Date Reviewed: January 26, 2006
Strengths: Cheap
Weaknesses: Didn't mount correctly. Useless
Bottom Line:
Fender mounted quickly. The set-up was fairly obvious. However, it was at an odd angle. The part behind the fork was so high above the wheel that it hit the downtube. The front part was angled so that it came within an inch of the wheel. There is no easy way of fixing this, b/c there is no angle adjustment. Totally unusable.
Submitted by
Raymo853
a Cross Country Rider
from State College, PA, USA
Date Reviewed: August 15, 2004
Strengths: durable look good
Weaknesses: hard to install lossens up once in a while
Bottom Line:
This review is for the silver CAB 45mm 700c fenders, the older style ones permanently on sale at Nashbar for around $14.
These fenders have worked great. Once in a while the mounts loosen up, but all my fenders have done that. I do beat these fenders hard for a commuter bike, once in a while cutting through mild single track, taking part in our urban races around here. I like their looks too, silver with the black stripe.
Submitted by
wayne
a Weekend Warrior
from irvine, ca, USA
Date Reviewed: January 5, 2004
Strengths: Ease of mounting
Weaknesses: Very brittle!! I was amoung the first one to install fenders from my weekend rider buddies. These fenders snapped off like twigs... How embarrassing...
Bottom Line:
I have mounted Zefal's front and rear fenders on my Marin Rock Springs bike. The front part of the front fender snapped off on my first ride with it, and the rear fender snapped on my second ride when it caught my foot when I was getting on the bike. I, absolutely, do not recommand Zefal fenders, period!
Bike Setup: Marin Rock Springs with Sram components. Sram rules!
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Antony
a Weekend Warrior
from Seattle WA
Date Reviewed: November 17, 2003
Strengths: Well, it's better to have some kind of fenders on your bicycle. But consider other models.
Weaknesses: These plastic "speed clips" are unreliable. Not recommended!
Bottom Line:
Well, I have always installed fenders on my bikes because I don't like to be wet and dirty after the ride. I bought Zefal Plstic Speed Clips fenders(http://www.zefal.com/anglais/gboutrinang.html) for my old road bike to commute with clean clothes in the rainy town of Seattle. Paid $30 in my local bike shop. First pair of fenders I had to return - they were with defects and couldn't be installed properly. I changed for the another pair of the same full-sise silver mudguards. I prefer to avoid buing cheap stuff, and these french-made fenders seemed to be reliable... I spent more than 2 (two) hours installing these "easy plastic clips"! I have 15 years experience in cycling and fixing bikes. My other bicycle is using full-size fenders without any brand name from Taiwan. I bough them for $9, installed in 20 minutes and using them for 3 years without any complains. Anyway, installing Zefal fenders was a real pain. Plastic clips were scratching the tires and all construction was very unreliable. I'm using Zefal for several months, and I'm not satisfied with this purchase. An occasional light impact is enough to crash all the system. I would encourage cyclists to make a research and consider other model than Zefal Plastic Speed Clips Fenders.
Similar Products Used: "no name" fenders - cheaper and better.
Bike Setup: Road Schwinn bike for commuting/recreational rides. Fenders (700x35) are used with 700x28 tires.
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Kyle
a Cross Country Rider
from Bozeman, MT
Date Reviewed: October 4, 2003
Strengths: Zefal KAA Wide Profile: Cheap, clips on and off quickly, stays attached easily, lightweight
Weaknesses: Zefal KAA Wide Profile: Brittle plastic that breaks very easily, so light that it isn't very sturdy despite the brittle plastic
Bottom Line:
Zefal KAA Wide Profile Fender: Got a great deal on this at Nashbar, and it worked quite well the few times I used it until it broke. The crappy brittle plastic sucks. I bumped it (wasn't even very rough) while loading the bike and the brittle plastic snapped where everything clips together under the shock/fork.. This quick realease clip system works great and would be a great design except that the small pieces required for the clipping mechanism are very cheap and fragile when made out of crappy brittle plastic. 5 for looks, 5 for price, 4 for design, but a 3 overall because none of the rest matters if it breaks right away
Similar Products Used: Headlands something from Nashbar is sturdier but heavier and not as cool looking
Bike Setup: Ibex Ignition-2
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Scutch
a Weekend Warrior
from Victoria, B.C.
Date Reviewed: September 19, 2003
Strengths: Looks good...
Weaknesses: Brittle plastic
Bottom Line:
Just like "Adam W", I installed the seat post mounted Flamingo, swung my leg to mount up, and *SHATTER*. My foot caught the edge of the piece of crap and it blew up! No give at all. In this age of plastics, Zefal should be able to find a material that's a little more forgiving.
Weaknesses: The instructions suck bigtime, I 've tried every variaton of the sack of clips they give you and none of them work. Of course any form of picture or instruction would help. (Yes I can read and yes I am mechanicaly inclined) They must smoke a lot of pot in the tech writing dept. in France. Don't try their website, no pictures there either, and their "contact us" site crashes when ever you try to email them. I'll be back to the bike shop this weekend.
Bottom Line:
I wonder how far I can bat a Twinkie with this piece of sh*t!
Submitted by
Geoff
a Weekend Warrior
from Seattle,WA
Date Reviewed: December 20, 2002
Strengths: NONE
Weaknesses: Worthless pieces of junk! I've have never seen such inept engineering. They used cheap plastic clips to attach the stays to the CAB fender. Two of the clips broke on the first test drive. Even if they had survived the attachment is incapable of withstanding even the mildest drop off a curb. Zefal should be ashamed of producing such junk and trying to sell it for 30 bucks. My god what were they thinking. They did however do a great job on the packaging which skillfully hides this design feature until you get it home.
Bottom Line:
Don't walk, RUN away from these cheeseball fenders.
Submitted by
Max Kline
a Cross Country Rider
from Merchantville, NJ
Date Reviewed: October 28, 2002
Strengths: none
Weaknesses: flimsy
Bottom Line:
This is the Zefal Wide Profile Front Fender. This flimsy piece of junk burst into pieces as I did an awesome one inch drop off on the way out of the driveway. Unlike others this did not tangle in my brake or cause anything other than laughter. Nashbar have been great with the customer service no slight against them. I would not recommend this fender for any conditions (other than comedy routines).
Submitted by
Bailey S
a Weekend Warrior
from Washington
Date Reviewed: September 13, 2002
Strengths: uh...looks cool
Weaknesses: weak, dangerous, poor instructions
Bottom Line:
didn't even have a chance to ride on a trail. I was riding down the street and the front portion popped off, went in front of my bike, and under my tire. I ran it over, turned around, and found little pieces all over the road, (1 lane) I would not recommend buying this product for any reason. (yes i did install it correctly) (This was the Zefal Wide Profile Front Fender, Kaa)
Submitted by
G.D.
a Cross Country Rider
from Atlanta, GA
Date Reviewed: August 17, 2002
Strengths: See below
Weaknesses: See below
Bottom Line:
This is a review for Zefal Clip-On City Fenders (45mm). I just had a hell of a time with these putting these on my computer and I must b1tch about them . I wanted full fenders and this was the closest I could get to after several LBS trips. "Clip on" makes the installation sound like a breeze, however, the only thing that clips on is the stays to the plastic. Everything else is fairly arduous. The "instructions" leave a lot of guesswork as there's four bags of hardware and nothing is marked and there's only three diagrams for about 20 steps. Plus, a lack of alternatives within - one part requires latching to the chainstay bridge. My bike doesn't have one (I used a zip tie instead). The worst part though is the stays bending. They have little more tensile strength than a wire hanger. After installation on both, the fender had bent away from the side I had placed on the eyelet first, so they didn't exactly align themselves up with the tire when I was complete. Try to line it back up, the stay pops out of the mount. Cool feature, huh? The washers hardly cover the required areas and I had to dig up some parts of my own to make this all work. I haven't even had them in the rain yet but I can tell that at very least, the front fender isn't low enough to prevent wet feet and a shower on the bottom bracket. Looks like I still need a mud flap. Groovy! I also don't believe I can steer the bike when my pedals are in the 3/9o'clock position. I also had to find new screws to make the rear fender fit with a rear rack. I may as well have wiped my ass with the $25 and given my money some purpose.
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