Why mudguard/pannier bosses?

ishaw":2adawwie said:

I noticed that on my Raleigh torus ti frame, whilst not mudguard eyelets at the drop outs, it seems to have a threaded hole in the rear wishbone that can only be for mounting a mudguard. Why, when there are no other fixings????

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They probably either bought the bit in and they all came like that or there was another fame that used one that did come with mudguard mounts and it's simpler and cheaper to make one part that fits both than set up for two different styles. Just me guessing though.

Heres my take on it, bike cmpanies don't always aim bikes at racing & weight freaks. To many owners, they arent even noticed or appreciated when fitted to a frame, yet if you ever decided to fit a rack or guards at some point, you'd be pretty peeved to find your frame has none.
Lets also remember that 90% of stuff is Taiwanese, it's probable that it wasnt specced to have the bosses removed at production, or even that the additional cost of having them remved during production was viable/worth doing.

I have worked in cycle design & production in the past. Worth noting is that (lightweight) Ritchey Logic droputs have threaded bosses as standard.

ishaw":1o2ebzam said:

I noticed that on my Raleigh torus ti frame, whilst not mudguard eyelets at the drop outs, it seems to have a threaded hole in the rear wishbone that can only be for mounting a mudguard. Why, when there are no other fixings????

Click to expand...

Is that not more likely due to the (possibly no longer active) UK law that all roadgoing cycles had to have frame-mounted reflectors? My frame has a similar setup, but in my case it's probably due to having dropouts made by a different builder.

minor_LEGEND":whj6hm10 said:

Worth noting is that (lightweight) Ritchey Logic droputs have threaded bosses as standard.

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Really? I've had several bikes with Ritchey dropouts of various designs and, annoyingly, none have had rack mounts...

The presence of such bosses on some so called race frames would suggest to me that they were as far removed from their regular cousins as the manufacturers marketing departments would have you believe.

But not everyone races a race frame. Look at how many race replica motorbikes end up with mini racks, Givi planners and tank bags in order to make them useable for another purpose.

Personally, I regret that modern bikes don't have them! They are so much less versatile as a result. For UK riding in the winter, mudguards like the old Crud one kept you drier and cleaner AND stopped watery muck spraying all over the seatpost / seat tube join.

Commuting on a bike without mudguards is mucky misery.

Roger that. My commuter wears it's SKS guards with pride.

Interestingly... my Zaskar came with rack mounts on the back drilled in to the rear dropouts. Just a couple of holes. And always thought of that as a race frame - although I guess as other people have intimated frames in those days were generally raced at weekends and ridden in the week (for most of us poor and humble students anwyay )

A useful feature AND a weight saving! What's not to like?