The Mk3s are the latest iteration of Crud's well received Roadracer clip-on mudguards. With a new, simpler design and a much quicker fit and removal setup they are hard to knock, although I found they weren't completely rub-free.
If you haven't seen the likes of the Roadracer before, here's a little recap: they are designed to be used on bikes that don't have the clearances or fixing mounts for a traditional set of fixed mudguards – most road bikes then, basically.
Not all of us want or have the luxury of a separate winter training bike, so the Roadracers give you that option of running a single bike through the wettest days for the comfort of yourself and those around you, while also reducing wear and tear on some of your bike's components.
The front mudguard comes in two parts: the main body and a small clip-on 'nose-piece'. This is held in place with adhesive which, held for 20 or 30 seconds, sticks fast.
Coverage is good, extending 175mm from the fork crown at the front and wrapping around the tyre to finish about 130mm above the ground. This keeps your feet dry even when the roads are soaking, though one thing to bear in mind is that you will probably suffer a bit of toe overlap on frames not designed to accept mudguards.
The rear is another two-piece design, with the main body passing under the brake bridge before being joined to the seat tube section by way of a small plastic nut and bolt. This section can be left off if you don't have at least 4mm of clearance between tyre and frame.
If you use the whole guard, then depending on your frame size, it fits right down to the chainstays, and the drive side of the seat tube section wraps around the wheel to keep the spray off the chainset.
Coverage at the rear isn't so great, though – well, it is for the rider, but those who are following your wheel still get a bit of a shower. I'd like to see it wrap around the tyre a little more, to at least hub height.
Fitment is where the Roadracers come into their own, with a start-to-finish setup of about 15 minutes. The key to this is the use of Duotech 'Interloc' strips, which are a bit like industrial strength Velcro. You get four strips in the box to fit to the frame, with the opposing pads already attached to the mudguard. You literally offer up the guard to the frame or fork and stick the pads on – job done. In fact Crud has its own video demonstration here, so I won't go into too much detail other than to say it really is as easy as it looks.
I decided to test the Roadracers on my fixed wheel, for two reasons. The clearances are very tight, especially at the rear where there's just 6mm between the tyre and brake bridge, plus the majority of other clip-on mudguard sets use the quick release skewer, which isn't a lot of good when you're running 15mm axles.
> Read our guide to the best mudguards
As far as the limited distance between tyre and guard goes, the strong hold of the Duotech strips means up and down movement is virtually eliminated. Side to side movement is quite noticeable, though, because of how close together the stays are, meaning the tail end of each guard flaps around a fair bit and can be noisy. The included furry pile strips help keep things centred (as shown on the video), but if vibration and noise are a worry you might want to look elsewhere.
Crud sells replacement fixing kits so you could set various bikes up and swap the guards between the two. Even though the Crud website states these will fit tyres up to 35mm, its video shows them on a 38mm tyre. Ideal for turning a cyclo-cross bike into a weekly commuter, say.
> How to winterproof your bike
Against the competition the Roadracers stack up well on weight, price and fitting. The most direct comparison is with SKS's Raceblades. Both the Pro/Pro XL and the Longs have scored highly in our tests, especially for sturdiness when in position, but to my mind the Roadracer Mk3s offer better coverage and looks. The SKS models are £10-15 more, too.
Verdict
A quick and simple solution to turn your race bike into a year-round machine
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road.cc test report
Make and model: Crud Roadracer Mk3
Size tested: Fits up to 38mm tyres ('officially' 35mm)
Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?
The Crud Roadracer Mk3 mudguards are designed for bikes that don't have frame eyelets for traditional guards. The Cruds are a neat and simple solution for the majority of road bikes.
Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?
* Fits up to 38mm tyre width
* 4mm minimum clearance required
* Works with disc and rim brakes
They feel much sturdier than previous versions.
Simple to fit and offer great coverage.
With no rubber band fixings to perish and the near-single-piece design, they should last.
Lighter than a lot of the competition.
About the same as a decent pair of full fixed mudguards and cheaper than the likes of SKS Raceblade setups.
Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose
Easy to fit and keep you dry.
Tell us what you particularly liked about the product
The look; it's the best looking clip-on solution out there, to my mind.
Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product
Side to side rubbing will irritate some.
Did you enjoy using the product? Yes
Would you consider buying the product? Yes
Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes
Use this box to explain your score
For what they are, the Crud Roadracer Mk3s are the best incarnation yet and offer some of the best coverage in the 'clip-on' market. The only downsides are the slight side to side rubbing and the aesthetics of leaving the fixing strips on your best bike.
About the tester
Age: 38
I usually ride: This month's test bike My best bike is: Kinesis Aithien
I've been riding for: 10-20 years I ride: Every day I would class myself as: Expert
I regularly do the following types of riding: time trialling, commuting, club rides, sportives, fixed/singlespeed
Stu knocked out his first road.cc review back in 2009 and since then he's chucked the best part of seventy test bikes around the West Country, a couple of them quite literally! With three alloy and two steel bikes in his fleet he's definitely a metal man (that'll be the engineering background) but is slowly warming to that modern carbon fibre stuff along with fat tyres & disc brakes.
It's not all nostalgia though, after spending the last few years in product design Stu keeps banging on about how 3D printing is going to be the next big thing and he's a sucker for a beautiful paint job too.
18 comments
I think I'll wait until at least Mk 5 before I consider replacing my Topeak R1/R2 setup.
Too bad about the shockingly ugly curved supports. Make them straight, please, Mr. Crud.
Been using the mk2's for years (modified them for my disc brake bike) and now have the mk3's and they work perfectly
You do get a little rub now and again which doesn't bother me as the clearances on my work/winter bike is very close and no other guards would fit, plus once my headphones are in i cant hear them
Still dont get it.
Winter bike with Full REAL guards, isnt expensive and so much more efficient and fit for purpose for our 6 month, salt-ridden, wet winters.
These are a sticking plaster on the gaping wound of poor bike selection.
mylesrants I chose the Cannondale caad 10 disc as my commute bike (which doesn't come with fixings mounts) as I want a bike to be quick on the commute all year round, so having two commuter bikes is expensive when you can buy guards like these. Having had the SKS Raceblades last winter these have made my commute much more enjoyable in the rain and I would highly recommend them.
Useless for preventing a deluge to the person behind - I suffered in a club ride with 3 people using these a couple of weeks back. The Mk2 was much longer and far better for that.
A good idea in principle, but in reality the duotech just isnt a strong enough fixing for real world use.
I bought these as soon as they were available, having snapped an old set of MK2's by kicking the front wheel as I turned the bars in traffic, but I was keen for something light and simple to fit/remove on my Cervelo R2 which is my only bike and spends a lot of its time commuting.
I had the MK3's for about 6 weeks, and yesterday did the first REALLY wet ride with them. They make a bit of noise as they bounce about but do offer really good coverage for the rider, if not those behind him/her. They cover the front mech which is a nice touch.
Alas on the first decent sized puddle in the road, which I rode in to at normal speed, circa 20kph with traffic in front and behind the front mudguard was overwhelmed and ripped off the duotech fixing, flinging it behind me and being run over by several cars.
I went out and bought an M:Part replacement today with rubber fixing brackets. Not as much coverage, but just as easy to fit and it's not going to just tear off like the Crud did.
IMO. Not fit for purpose, let alone 4 stars...
That was the worst thing about the Mk 2s, the hideous stays. Why on earth not straight?
These don't work with Enve CX forks (canti brakes): never stayed fixed because the ridge around the bosses precludes a permanent Velcro fix. And they rattle. Took them off the CX bike in frustration, having wasted several hours of my life that I won't get back.
Then tried the front guard on my steel vintage Peugeot. Won't fit there either because the fixing pads are designed for fat straight-leg forks rather than thin curved steel.
Not fit for purpose , going on eBay.
PS: have used the Mk2s on my Enigma for five years, no problems.
Got sick of these last night and binned them.
Too disgusting to have on a bike.
No mudguards? No problem.
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thanks for that feedback. they look quite good from a function point of view except for that and I was wondering. I wish one vendor made actual front clip-on (like some do for the rear fender, clips on the seat tube and works okay/will not move )
one *actual* clip on each side of the fork wouldnt look great but it would work great (ie NOT move at all AND be quick to install, quicker than rubber band ones and screwd on ones) and these things are temporary - plus your bike does not look great in the rain anyway. Maybe I should start a kick starter ;P
£30 wasted. Fragile. Fiddly. Tried cutting the rear guard to correct length (as shown on their video) and it shattered - now much shortet than it should be. On the road - rattle, rub, rattle, rub. They are too narrow in places and therefore pointless with respect to road spray (front part of guard is totally pointless and ineffective). Once I got them sorted I rermained marginally less dirty/wet/filthy than without them. Binned 'em.
get a Mason ... Fast, comfy AND has clearance for big tyres / guards ... just sayin'
I got some Crud Mk 3's for £20 at the start of the winter. I didn't have the clearance on my heavily modified folding Dahon as I've squeezed 700c wheels in (28mm tyres). They are surprisingly good and have dealt with an absolute deluge as well as any full length mudguards I've used. They don't rub and only rattle slightly over really rough surfaces. I've not bothered taking them on and off as intended. I imagine they are a bit more of a faff than the new SKS Race Blade jobbies as you have to fiddle with getting them aligned with Velcro to get them central over the wheel (esp with 28mm tyres).
Just a good option if you need the extra coverage. Others have complained about their build quality and tricky fit but that hasn't been my experience. I have lost the nose piece on the front guard though.
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Which part of this sentence did you not understand?
"Not all of us want or have the luxury of a separate winter training bike, so the Roadracers give you that option of running a single bike through the wettest days"
I bought a pair of these recently after the rear M22 version disintegrated on commuter bike.
Out of the box they seem more solid than the Mk2 versions and considerably wider to cope with bigger tyres. Other than only having 3 bits of sticky duotec in my box (replaced very swiftly by crud when I E-maild them) fitting wasn't too difficult but I found it a bit difficult to find the best position for the brush strips where they would hit the rim not the tyre.
As stated above, they aren't as long at the back for the person behind but, this probably won't be a problem as I'm normally riding alone to work and they are there really to keep me dry not the person behind. If it does become an issue at any point I'm sure I can glue a bit of old tyre or tube to the rear to give further coverage.
I got on quite well with the Mk2s as a damp road/rain way of keeping myself and the bike muck free, which tbh is a lot of the time in the UK. Broke the Mk2s and was put off the Mk3s by the reviews. Fitted some SKS Raceblades but, whilst they kept me muck free, they didn't protect the bike so thought I'd give the Mk3s a go. They've been excellent; only a bit of 'slap' when going over large bumps. I don't remove/refit them that much as I don't trust Brit weather. Agree that the stays aren't that aesthetically pleasing, but a bike covered in road muck doesn't look that good either. If I had a mechanic to hand a dirty bike to post ride, perhaps I'd ditch mudguards altogether!