The muddy board is still not blocked by the mudboard-this is the problem …
You will see that mud boards may look quite gentle in the field of bicycles, but although their appearance and functions are quite bland, they often cause a lot of sensation in the community. For some people, they are a kind of trouble, a drag, or even an eye -catching thing. However, if you join the local Saturday club in a wet January in the UK and run without a bicycle, you are destined to be questioned by at least someone because you are selfish or destroy the health of your bicycle.
Generally speaking, we can reach an agreement here Bicycle weekly The mud board is a great accessory that should be more mainstream -but why not?
SKS RACE BLADES -Perhaps it is the preferred mud board for British winter hackers
(Picture source: Andy Turner)
Advantages and disadvantages
This seems to be obvious, but I think it is meaningful to briefly review the design purposes of the mud board and their lack of design.
The main role of mud or muddy board is to protect the violations of road fragments from road fragments. For all lucky people with a warm climate, it may be dirty when riding on the gravel road. Of course, for our British readers, we are talking about mixture of mud, petroleum, water and salt. They make our road more beautiful, especially in winter.
Of course, the lack of spray helps our cycling more pleasant, especially when group riding, but it can also save you money. By protecting your clothes and preventing water, dirt and fragments into the transmission system, you can significantly reduce the wear of bicycle components, thereby reducing the frequency of replacement chains and flywheels. If the most common use of your bicycle is to prevent the water on the clothes from splashing the water on the clothes at 9 am, then the muddy board is very useful.
However, the mud board also has its shortcomings, especially for modern highway bicycles. Traditional design is very troublesome to install, and usually requires hole eyes or specific frame gaps, and this is the lack of many modern high -performance bicycles. Even if there is hole eye, they may still be bad -you only need to work in a bicycle shop with a commute customer base to find the answer, believe me.
Although clamping alternatives are more adaptable, the effect is often poor, and it is easy to make a quack or slippery during cycling. Aesthetic pureists may not like the smooth lines of road bicycles.
So why is the design of the mud board ignored?
The slippery road is the main feature of the winter cold climate.
(Picture source: future)
Perhaps the biggest reason for the design of the mud board in the past few years has not received particularly thorough change, change or tampering of tampering is that it does not seem to be a priority of a bicycle brand, especially from the perspective of sales. Of course, another reason is that the design of the mud board is essentially simple, and the optimization of materials and tolerances is the only real way to improve significantly.
But why is there no particular trouble for the bicycle brand? After all, we recently conducted a polls conducted by more than 1,000 people on the YouTube Channel of Bicycle Weekly. 60% of the audience used mud boards, and 27% said that the main reason for them to use mud boards was because There are too many stalls. A ‘fafff’.
Matt Ischt-Barnard is the economic and technical writer of “Bicycle Weekly”, but he has worked in the industry (including bicycle design) for many years. We think he can be well Clarify the factors that hinder brand development.
Ichter Barnard said: “The mud board does not use it as an inventory, or even the main reason for the selection part of the factory bicycle is the cost.” Of course, the mud board will not cost a lot of money, but this is still a stroke The most important thing is that it is currently not the mainstream in the field of bicycle design. “
“If the industry is slightly shifted with the focus and changes the view of the market, this will definitely help. Taking the automotive market as an example, although there are many functions in the automotive industry (such as air conditioning) Celery), and because they are widespread in the entire industry, the brand tends to incorporate this cost into the price of the car instead of it as an additional cost of optional costs. In the end, it will be put into the mud board and ultimately improve its function and quality. “
However, the cost is unavoidable. In the end, the mud boards are finally provided as OEM parts or options.
“I guess that under the current climate, adding mud boards to bicycles may spend a brand of $ 10 to 15, which may increase the price of the finished bicycle by $ 50 to $ 100. They become more mainstream and the cost may be reduced. “
In a large -scale production environment, costs are still a factor, even if we talk about small amounts.
(Picture source: Ben Baker)
But how is the main disadvantage of the mud board installed? Of course, there are many good choices, such as SKS’s one -size -fits -cut RACE Blade, or a stronger settings from Bontrager, but still have room for improvement.
“It is necessary to introduce a standard for the paddy board on the road bicycle,” Ichter Banard explained. “Because this at least means that accessories brands can be optimized, knowing it is suitable for the full series of bicycles.”
“Look at the box of a standard mud board, you may see the mud board itself, as well as a lot of different clips and brackets. If we can eliminate the needs of these accessories in some way, and the quality is more quality, and the quality is more Good standard accessories instead, we may improve product quality without having to increase prices.
“Finally, people may not like this, but it will real If people no longer feel too light about the muddy/paddy board, it will be helpful. Most of the muddy markets are cheap plastic. These plastics will deform, become brittle and broken, and all of them make them frustrating. For most people, muddy boards are symptoms of bad weather-so we accept a small impact on the average speed. “
Clear pads are often lighter, but the coverage of you and your cycling partners is much smaller.
(Image source: Lecis Soccar)
Where should we go?
In fact, the improvement of the mud board depends on the joint efforts of bicycle brands and accessories manufacturers, so that the muddy board can better serve consumers.
Take ENVE melee as an example. A competition bicycle that has achieved victory at the world tour level still has space with mudplanes/shielded panel holes. This is a small detail. Even racers can install a full -length mud board when the weather changes. More bicycle brands can be easily adopted.
If accessories brands have the standards that can be followed, I have no doubt that I can develop better products with higher structural rigidity.
This is still the twenty -two problem, but the bicycle industry comes -let us make the mud board cool again!
