i installed cascadias onto my wife's hybrid bike a year or so ago and have had ZERO issues with them ever since, so once i got a road bike that had proper fender bosses and clearance, i went that route with it. here are my thoughts on them after a couple months of daily usage: good: - easy to fit. they took about half an hour, maybe. you need to remove the back wheel so obviously they're much easier to install if you have a stand to get to your chainstay bridge and the like, but it's not necessary. i installed my wife's easily by just putting the bike upside down. - great coverage. the long fender in the front, with mudguard, minimizes the water hitting your feet. the same in the rear keeps the face of the guy behind you nice and dry. - nice and light. much lighter than similar aluminum fenders. they're about 220 grams, i believe. - quiet, for the most part (see below). once you have all the clearances dialed in, you'll hear a bit of rattling as you go over bumps and such, but that's to be expected with any fenders. i'm using the 35mm road version with 25mm tires. - no issues hitting them, toe-overlap-wise. but that depends on your bike. if you have a shorter wheelbase and are close to having toe-overlap, you might have issues. - can be used with a fork-mounted roof rack without removing them. the mudflap in the front will hit the rack tray, but then it just folds back and all is good (i have the rockeymounts tierod roof trays). - planet bike puts money back into cycling safety/advocacy. and they don't want you to toss their products and buy new ones if you have issues with them down the road; so they sell parts directly from their website, complete with free shipping. i like giving my money to companies like this. not-so-good: - you will need to cut the excess metal off the ends of the struts and this requires either a hacksaw or bolt cutters. i chose the latter and it was very easy, but a lot of people might not have these around. you MUST cut these though or toe overlap is more likely (and dangerous) and you could cut yourself on the ends of these. - on a road bike, you'll need to mount them to the brake posts (versus touring, cross or hybrids where you won't even touch the cantilever or v-brakes those bikes use). these will interfere with the brake adjustment and that means a bit more fiddling and fine-tuning. check out the problem solvers sheldon nuts:Problem Solvers Sheldon Fender Nuts Set - 13mm Front and 10mm Rear . these are little nuts that replace your brake post nuts and effectively extend the back of your brake post; you screw the sheldon nut into the brake post and then the fender into the sheldon nut. then you don't have to interfere with your brake adjustment when fitting/removing the fenders and you can easily and quickly fit/remove them. after the first time you set 'em up, removing/refitting can be done in about two minutes. highly recommended. - the plastic piece that holds the rear fender onto the brake post (or sheldon nut) is the main source of rattling for these fenders. it rattles as the two pieces of plastic flex against one another. no amount of adjusting would alleviate this on my bike. finally, i found a metal version of this same piece from some leftover sks chromoplastic parts; it fits much tighter so i used it instead. now the rear fender's absolutely silent. NOTE: i haven't noticed this problem with my wife's bike, so it might be highly dependent on the bike, clearance, tires, adjustment, etc. overall, i'm loving these. i don't live in portland or seattle so it's not like there's a deluge of rain coming my way constantly. i live in northeast ohio though, where the weather changes almost hourly. in the winter, this means it will rain or snow for an hour (or day, or week), then be dry but just above freezing for weeks. then 60F for two days, then back to freezing... which means the roads are pretty much always covered in rain/snow/melting snow leftovers, because it's never warm enough to completely dry up. these fenders work excellently for that, as well as in steady rain/snow. they make cleanup of your bike and yourself MUCH easier and they prolong the life of your components. and really, that's the reason you wanted fenders in the first place. these accomplish that task, they're easy to install, they're light, they're inexpensive and they only have a few minor shortcomings which are easy enough to solve. happy all around.
