Mud Guards for Tag Along Bike

Intro

My youngest child (boy) has recently come to the age where he can go on a tag along bike. Living in rural england, there is mud everywhere for 90% of the year, and our first trip out was cut short owing sogginess and mud splattering. 

I am quite practiced at bodging together DIY mudguards (fenders is in USA) for various bikes, but fitting effective mudguards (fenders) on this tag along has proved a laborious affair!

The problem being that as well as the normal rear wheel splatter problem, you also have a unique "front wheel" splatter problem for the tag along rider, as they are low down and in the line of fire from your rear wheel splatter.

So the rear rider will get wet and muddy very quickly if no mud guards are provided. This can be fun in the summer, but in the winter it is a bit much to ask perhaps. 

Tag Along Wheel Splatter

The easiest problem to deal with is the splatter from the wheel of the tag along bike. Which you would treat as any rear wheel, on any bike. You could buy a set of 20" mudguards and discard the front one, and that would do the trick no problem. 

In my case I used my favourite "trick" of installing a rack (£10) and then zip tieing some plastic board to it. Zip ties are cheap, and the plastic is always free. Plus you get a rear rack, and loads of clearance around the wheel. 

Main Bike Rear Wheel Splatter

This is quite difficult to deal with. The best answer would be to fit a flap on the rear mudguard of the main bike. The flap can be made from allsorts of things, I have done a post on DIY mudflaps some years ago. 

Simply Zip Tie Some Type of Plastic on to Under Side of Rack

As the image below shows the splatter not only flies off in the conventional manner, but also is blown backwards by head winds, meaning that is can "bend" around mudguards fitted on the "down tube" of the tag along. This was happening alot even through I have a a full set of mudguards on my main bike. 

Head Wind Blows Vertical Splatter Back on to Passengers

The answer here as hinted above is to add a flap to the rear mudguard of the main bike. The closer you can get to the ground the better. 

Create  Flap on Your Rear Mudguard to Prevent Splatter 

My initial thought was to use a crud catcher type guard on down tube of tag along, but this would have to be very long, and would need some sort of flap to catch low flying splatter. Better to install a flap on the main bikes rear wheel, and deal with the problem at source. 

Close but Not Quite There

So whilst my tag along wheel guard worked fin, I need to manage splatter from main bike's rear wheel a lot better. I will use a flap.

Sequential Test

Preliminary Ecological Appraisal 
construction environmental management plan