Gilles Berthound Delux Leather Mudgaurds

Are you suffering from nude fender anxiety? 8 out 10 fender uses are. You are not alone. The bare tips of your fenders cry out: ‘Cloth me, cover me!’ Only a true barbarian would ride fenders sans mud flaps. Mud flaps keep your toes dry, your drivetrain happy and your buddy that's drafting you from cursing your very existence. Some folks advocate for homemade mud flaps. Do not trust these people. No milk jug has ever made a bike look nicer. Don’t desecrate your beautiful bike with a sub par mud flap. It will not forgive you.

There are two good mud flaps out there.

Side note, I am sitting in the library in Telluride, and there is an old dude typing really aggressively and loudly. He is moaning and breathing weird, wearing bright blue headphones. Sweat pants, obviously. His keyboard will surely break under the strain soon. He sometimes nose laughs. I have headphones on and can still hear him over the music. MMMMM. Uhhhhmm. MM. Thwack tap tap Thwack mmmmm. It’s terrible. He’s on Facebook, but I suspect he is listening to a Nora Roberts book on tape, probably called ‘Untamed Magic Desires’. We should actually just name all our bikes after Nora Roberts book titles: Hot Ice, Night Moves, Second Nature, Risky Business, Blue Smoke, Blood Magick. Pretty solid names. Wait. Mudflaps.

The two best flaps out there are leather. And there's essentially only two options. These deluxe ones, for your super fancy rig, and then the Velo Orange ones, which are super nice as well, but don’t come with as nice of hardware.

The Gilles Berthoud flaps are hand cut by a master craftsman using obsidian blades that were stolen from the local hospital. They are only cut out on Thursday nights, which happens to be the same night as the happy hour at Raul’s. Coincidence? We leave that question to you, dear reader.*

These are the nicest mud flaps out there. Best hardware, brass and stainless. Nice leather. Super thick. Goop these up before you mount them. Only use Proofide. That’s the ticket. Front and backsides, and side sides. Put bee’s wax on the threads of the hardware. Sold by the each, despite the pictures showing a pair. You want a pair, but these are sold by the eachly.

*none of that is probably true.