Fender
How it happened
It’s not uncommon that we are left with a few, unused or uncollected number boards after our events. These number had been building up in our storage so I had been thinking on what we might be able to do with these in terms of finding a use for them. After musing on this for some time I hit on the idea that they might be just large enough and rigid enough to convert to a small fender.
A rough template was made and a little cutting and clipping later we had a few boards try. These found a home on a few hire bikes at Beics Brenin. The idea was obviously a success as staff were soon plundering our stash of old numbers to make boards for their entire hire fleet.
Thinking ahead it seemed only logical not only to make the template available to others but to try printing future numbers with the design so that it could be easily clipped for re-purposing. So for the Fox Antifreeze 2019, the fender number board was born (Fenderboard? Fumberboard? Fendernum?).
How to make
Before you start – If your board had a foam backed RFID chip you’ll need to remove this. The glue on these suckers is real good so they can be a little awkward to get off but even if you can just get the foam off it will prevent it fowling on the tyre.
Making the fender is simple, just follow these instructions…
[1] Cut round the dotted line marked on the board (or use the template that can be downloaded HERE if you are converting an old board).
[2] [TIP-Before making any holes its a good idea to offer up the fender to your bike to check the holes on the template are in a good position for your fork arch. If not, just mark them in a suitable location and make your holes there.]Now make the holes if they are not already present. (At the time of posting this we were still undecided about drilling holes all over the boards before the event so your holes may or may not be pre-drilled). The holes at the edge are fairly simple to do, we’ve found these can be done easily with a standard hole punch if you are careful. The holes in the middle can be a little trickier, ideally you need a tool for this called a hollow punch. These can be a little tricky to get hold of but some hardware shops sell them or you can find them pretty cheaply on ebay. We’ve been using a 6mm but so long as the hole is big enough for a cable tie it should be good. Alternatively they can be drilled by sandwiching the board between 2 layers of scrap wood or plastic, although this can make it a little difficult to see where the holes need to go. We had some success with burning them through with a soldering iron but wouldn’t recommend this because of the fumes and the fact that the soldering iron was ruined with plastic residue. We would be interested to hear if anyone discovers a better way.
[3] Once you have your template cut out and your holes in place it’s time to attache the fender to your bike. Taking note of the location of the fork arch holes so these orient correctly on your bike, use cable ties to attach the fender to the fork arch and fork legs.
[4] Spin the wheel and check nothing snags, if it’s all good you are ready to ride, hopefully with a little less mud in your eyes.
PLEASE NOTE: Obviously we are working within the restrictions of the board size. We didn’t want to make the board any bigger in order to offer the fender more coverage as this seemed to defeat the object of the exercise which was to re-purpose waste boards into something more useful. As a result, the coverage is not the biggest but its still perfectly functional. From our experiments so far they are certainly big enough to make a difference and do a reasonable job of keeping the worst of the trail gak from the spot where it flicks up directly into your eyes. So not the biggest but still very useful. Also, there are so many possible variables including loads of different fork types and tyre sizes that it’s very unlikely that this will work for everyone’s bike. Be creative, if you think you can modify it to make it work then it’s worth a try.
Share your creations…
We’d love to know how you got on with the conversion and how your re-purposed fenderboard is shaping up. Tag any images of your creations to us on social media. You’ll find us on facebook, twitter and instagram (instagram @dyfi_events) tag us and #dyfievents #foxantifreeze #fenderboard with anything you post.
If you can think of an even better re-purposing then we’d love to see that too. Get creative and maybe we’ll find a prize for the best alternative use of our boards that we see.
Happy crafting!
Toby & the Dyfi Events Team