Has anyone else noticed... once you've used mud guards awhile and gotten used to seeing them, a bike without mud guards looks so bare and incomplete?
Is Bluemels out of business? Were they an independent company, or part of some bigger organization?
What became of their tooling?
Were the plastic parts made by extrusion. or are they molded, or something else?
Now that most new bikes won't even accept mud guards, I have a difficult time understanding where the need for mud guards went. Granted, I never trained with them when I was younger, but I can remember MANY wet winter training rides when they would have come in handy.
About ten years ago a friend in Seattle told me that if you didn't DARE arrive for a rainy training ride without mudguards, lest you risk exile from the group. Is that still the case in Seattle? Anywhere else?
In Cincinnati a group of racers told me they wouldn't train with mudguards because they created too much wind drag and slowed them down too much. But I wonder - who needs to go fast on a cold winter's day? Wouldn't mud guards give you a better workout, and without as much windchill?
My dear Bluemels, where've ye gonta?
Aldo Ross
Monroe, Ohio
sunny and windy 40 degrees