Bike fenders—also known as mudguards—are handy accessories that keep mud and spray off of you, your riding partners, and important parts of your bike, like the chain and suspension. The terminology can be a bit confusing here, but mudguards and fenders are used interchangeably in the industry.

If your road bike doesn't have mudguard mounts, there are still a lot of mudguards options available to you. If you’re in the market for a set of ‘proper’ mudguards then buy once and buy right would be our advice – and the Portland Design Works Full Metal Fenders are about as good as mudguards get. Similar to the SKS Raceblades, attachment to the bike frame is via rubber mounts on the stays with wide, trimmable rubber straps to hold them in place, so they stay put well and your pride and joy won’t get scratched. Although they’re described as narrow, there are two widths available, to fit both 25mm and 32mm tyres.

Three types of gravel mudguard

With that extra long coverage, our reviewer found that the Bontrager NCS fenders/mudguards offer more protection than many other ‘full-length’ mudguards. The rubber mudflaps at the ends of fenders further add to the length and help reduce road spray for your feet or friends, but these aren’t as long as we see on some other mudgaurd sets. Riding your bike in the winter without a mudguard is likely to result in you turning up at your destination like you've been dragged through the proverbial hedge. However, mudguards aren't just about keeping your clothes clean - they also help to keep your feet and legs dry and warm, as well as protecting your bike's frame and components.

Crud Products XL Front Fender 6. Crud Products XL Front Fender Pricey but worth it if you need to remove/attach frequentlyBoth units come in two parts and wrap a good stretch of the tyre. Certainly, they’re long enough to protect the rider – although not so much anyone following in their slipstream. Made from robust polypropylene, these German mudguards have a feeling of quality about them. The front is easy to fit via rubber straps which loop around the fork. Equally neat is the fitting, which took us no more than 20-seconds to complete – including the time it took us to read the instructions. But that said, you perfectly well attach your own mudflaps to the Bluemels Basic and extend their spray protection that way. It’s simple (and cheap) enough to fashion a set from a few sheets of rubber - and there are even brands which offer funky designs, such as Raw Mudflap. To stop your toes from clashing with the stay end caps, the Full Metal fenders / mudguards use a single stay design that is kept higher on front fender than a double stay type. It made low speed manoeuvring easier, although there was still toe overlap on my bike but that's the bike and not the mudguards fault.