Monday, December 3, 2007

Aftermarket bicycle chainguards

Seth asks where he can find aftermarket chainguards for his Bianchi Castro Valley bicycle. I went on a hunt for plastic chainguards about three years ago and was unsuccessful. Last year, somebody asked where to find bicycle chainguards at the Bicycle Commute Tips blog and received no answer.

I've quickly searched the USA bike distributors catalogs for chainguards. SBS carries replacement chainguards for theirk Torker and Redline bikes, but I didn't see anything aftermarket. J&B looks like they carry a number of plastic chainguards. Most are for the brands of bikes they have (e.g. Sun & Cykel), but I see a number of generic items like "Chainguard 20" no clips." J&B does not sell to the general public so you'll need to go to your local bike shop and have them order the chainguards from J&B.

6 comments:

  1. Try at http://www.velo-orange.com/

    He's got metal chainguards aplenty.

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  2. Also, ebay. Every so often I see old metal chainguards for $7.99 BIN there.

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  3. Thanks for the tips, Jeremy. Does anyone have other ideas in addition to Jeremy's suggestions?

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  4. Just so you know chainguards only work well with bikes that have a fixed chainline. Hub geared bikes are fairly uncommon in the US (but getting more popular thank goodness) and henceforth so are chainguards. This is probably the reason why it is so hard to find after-market chainguards in the US. It doesn't help that most chainguard applications are proprietary to begin with.

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  5. Wald still makes chain guards in several different sizes. They aren't of the "high speed, low drag" persuasion, but they work.

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  6. Thanks for the pointers, Anon & Anon.

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