It's not always necessary to buy parts and accessories. Sometimes a little creativity can save you some bucks and give your ride a little style. Plastic water bottles are getting a lot of flack for taking up space in land fills, but they can also be used to keep road grime off.
With a few zip ties and a box cutter and/or scissors you can design fenders of your own. I cut this bottle in half and strapped the two halves on my seat tube to keep the grime off my legs. 
On another bike I used a reflector bracket, water bottle, and hanger. For this one I drilled a hole in the water bottle cap and bolted it through the rear reflector bracket, cut the bottle in half, zip tied the two halves together to make it longer, and then gave it rigidity by giving it a metal hanger spine connected with duct tape and zip ties.
Have you repurposed water bottles for bike hacks? Let us know.
Aha! I'm so happy to've found this. Been avoiding buying fenders for years since I live in Los Angeles, and thus endured the occasional mudbutt-- no more!
Posted by: Narinda | 06/13/2012 at 12:05 AM