How to Install Bike Fenders on a sixthreezero Around the Block Beach Cruiser Bike

Hey everyone. Welcome to sixthreezero again. Peter Kaltreider here. Now we're going to install the fenders on your Around the Block.

Okay. So, we're going to install the fenders for your Around the Block. You just ordered your fenders and you want to put them together. Listen, you can do this. I know you can. You got to really got to believe in yourself. It's not hard. There are a few little tricks to it. You could probably do it without this video. Some folks are not familiar with it and need a little extra help. But even if you've never done this before, I want you to believe in yourself. I always try to convey in my videos that you can absolutely do these things that you haven't done before. You can also go to a bike shop and pay someone to do it for you if you wanted. I don't think it's really necessary, but you can do that. So, let's get into it. Okay. So what you get, I've got a contrasting color here because obviously I have a mint green Around the Block and I have matte gray fenders here in plastic as they will arrive for you.

I also have struts. Now these struts or stays, whatever you like to call them, hold the fender obviously to the bike. These are silver, okay? You're going to receive black ones, but we're going to use silver today. Just to let you know, you're going to get black ones. And then in a separate package, you will also get your hardware. This is silver as well, and this will have all the nuts and bolts that you need. Okay? So, let's just get to it. I'm going to dump all these out. There we go. Where am I going to put this package? My back pocket. This back pocket. Okay. So, I'm going to go ahead and unwrap the fenders. We've got two of them. This bigger one here is the rear one. There you go. The matte gray. It's kind of a cool color actually. I hope the camera's picking that up all right. And then this, I'm going to throw over here. Whoop-de-doo. Okay, cool. So the first thing we want to do is attach the stays or struts to the fenders. Alrighty. So, we've got these little guys here.

It comes with a bolt, a nut, and two washers. We'll have one washer go on the outside part of the fender and then the opening on the fender right here. And then the second washer and the nut. Oh yes, I forgot to tell you the tools you need. You need a Phillips, you need four, five, and six-millimeter Allen wrenches, Allen keys, and then some sort of socket or wrench or even an adjustable crescent wrench to hold the nuts here. Okay? So, I have the luxury of having a socket here. It's going to be the eight millimeters I believe. Yep, the eight-millimeter. And then on the other side is your Phillips. I'm just going to tighten that down just like that. You don't need to crank it too hard, but you do want to make it pretty firm.

Okay. So, there we go. We got the strut on there. Then what we have here is the longer bolt. We have two bolts that are longer than the others. One is about twice as long as the medium one. I'm going to go ahead and take the nut and the washers off. If you get any of these washers in a different order, it's not the end of the world. It'll all work. They do have a certain order, but it's honestly not that important. So, here we go. Now there's a tab here to attach the front fender. That's going to slip right in behind the tire here, the wheel, and then we're going to stick the bolt in with the washer on it right through the front [inaudible 00:04:21] fork, which has a hole in it for this purpose. A lot of times the reflectors are attached here. We have them on the handlebars now though mostly. Let's see.

This hole seems to be a little narrow. I can get through by turning the bolt [inaudible 00:04:55]. So then there is a thicker washer which has a little curve. The curve is going to go on the back of the fork and then we'll stick the fender on with the fender tab. And then the second thin washer and then the nut. And you can tighten that up with a 10-millimeter wrench and screwdriver.

Here we go. We got that tightened down and now all we have to do is attach the struts to the eyelets here on the dropouts. Easy peasy. We have a few sizes of bolts here. This one's going to be the larger diameter one. It's called an M6 because it's six millimeters... Sorry, it is an M6, but a five-millimeter wrench fits into it. And then first up through the strut and then just screw it into the frame. Be very careful that you get the threads engaged properly. You really don't want to strip any of this because it will be a hassle to get it fixed again. But generally, the threads, if you do cross-thread or something, generally the threads on the bolt will strip instead of the frame. If you strip the frame, then you will have to probably get into a bike shop and get new threads put in. Not fun. So anyway, just be very, very gentle and careful as you thread these fasteners. That's probably good advice for any assembly of any product.

And then when you get to the end, these are kind of small bolts here. If you really wanted to, a person of a certain strength could break the head off of that, and then you'd be really in trouble. So when I'm tightening it down, I just get it to where it's firm, [inaudible 00:07:12] a gentle little pressure for another just tiny little not even eighth of a turn maybe. Just enough to secure it. You don't have to give it all your strength, and please don't because you could pop the head off of that bolt there. It's pretty small and can be delicate. So sometimes we see guys that crank it all the way down and boop, pop it off and that's a really aggravating situation. So anyway, check this out. The front fender is done, but what we want to do is make sure that it's nicely centered and everything.

I'm going to lift the front up here. And the brakes here are a little tight, actually. I'm just going to loosen those completely so they're not affecting us. So you want to see if the wheel can move freely of the fender. Usually, it does. However, fenders, they're kind of wiggly and wobbly. And so if you need to, you can actually pull up on the fender a little bit like that. You can adjust it with this slot here. You can squeeze the fenders a little bit. If it's not centered back here, don't worry about that. You can kind of push it this way or that way. There are a few things you can do. It's just attached with this little strut here. It's not a big deal if you need to do a little pulling or whatever to get it centered there. So anyway, I think they look good, but just showing you what you can do if your result isn't quite how you like it. Not a big deal. Those brakes need to be adjusted. They're tight. Anyway, here's your front fender. Cool.

Let's do the rear fender. It's going to be really the same operation almost, but there are a few little things and there's particularly one part that's a little bit difficult. I'll show you the hack for doing it. Okay? So, the first thing we'll do is go ahead and put the struts/stays back on. Same exact process. We'll get the really small bolts with Phillip's head, put that in there with its washer, and throw the strut in. Three hands might be handy in this operation. If you got a friend. I don't know, I've done this a million times, but it always seems a little awkward. There we go. Get that puppy attached right there. And then my screwdriver and my eight-millimeter socket. Or like I said, any adjustable wrench will do. A table's nice too actually. That helps.

So, tighten that on down. You can see here, I got a little crooked. No problem. Straighten it back up. Yeah. Okay. Fenders aren't a big deal, guys. Easy peasy. Nothing to stress about. If you break it, just let us know. We'll send you a new one. But you're not going to, you're going to be fine. I think that if you are intimidated by this, you can take it as a little bit of an adventure, a little bit of a challenge, and try it out. If you end up getting a little frustrated, certainly give us a call. We'll help you out, get you through it maybe. Maybe this video will help you. But if it is the case that it's a little tough for you, it's quite gratifying once you do get it done and realize you can do these things. Okay.

So, now we're going to take the little medium-length bolt here and I'm going to take the fender and I'm going to slide it in from the back. And then that tab is going to go all the way here too... There's a cross-piece here between the chain stays, which is just a part of the frame, and you'll see a hole there. And that is four. These fast bolts. So you got the bolt, you got the washer, and we're going to stick it through the fender tab and then through the frame. Oh, sorry. I skipped a step. We've got that thicker washer with the curved side. We can put that in too. Again, as I said, we're not launching this bike off the moon, so if you get some washers put in the wrong spot, it's not going to really matter honestly. If you think it does matter, you can tell me in the comments below. Maybe you know something I don't know. But I don't think it's going to make the world the worst place if you get the washers in the wrong spot.

I think that's one thing too, is not to take any of it too seriously. Sometimes when you find something that you haven't done before, it may seem a little out of your... Ooh. Out of your normal experience. Don't take it too seriously, just work on it and we'll get [inaudible 00:12:11]. You know what? I missed the order of operations here, guys. We got to do the tricky part first. Sorry about that. It's live. Live television, anything can happen. So I'm going to take the really tiny little screw and a washer, and there's a slot here at the very bottom of the fender. Okay? And it has to attach to a little tab that's down here behind the large chain ring. Okay? So, this is the hard one to get to because it is actually kind of blocked by the tire or the wheel.

You can certainly take the wheel off. If you do that, it's not hard to take the wheel off, especially with a 7-speed. It just drops right out and then it'll make this operation extremely simple. But there's a little bit of a hack you can also try if you want, which is... Look at that. I'm making all kinds of racket. I'm going to go ahead and deflate the tire. So I took the cap off of the valve and right now I'm taking some air out of the tire. Again, if you want to remove the wheel, feel free to do it, but we need to access this little bracket right here. Okay? And the very first thing we're going to do before we attach anything else on this fender, it's completely loose, is we're going to stick that screw through the slot and attach it.

Nope. The brakes are getting in the way again. By the way, I'll show you this simple hack too for loosening your brakes really easily. Okay. So, now I got it started just a little bit there, just with my thumb and forefinger here. And then what I can do is with this deflated tire, I can squeeze the Phillips head screwdriver in there, get it tightened down. Oh yeah. This is definitely the hardest part of the operation, especially [inaudible 00:14:17] do what I do and skip a step taking the wheel out. Again, taking the wheel out, is not that hard, but you can just deflate the tire and get the screw in like that. Done. Okay, cool.

All right, cool. So now that we've got the bottom screw in there, we're going to go ahead and attach it here with the fender tab. Go ahead and slide the bolt and a washer onto the tab and then slide the thicker washer through and then we go through the frame. As I said, the order of washers isn't that important. There's a reason for washers, but it's not that big a deal if you get them in the wrong order, but we'll see what the right order is. Okay. And then I can tighten this with my socket. It's going to be a 10-millimeter. And the Phillips.

All right, great. And the last thing will be the struts. Okay? And don't forget, you're going to need to reinflate your tire. I didn't bring a pump with me. So I'm going to grab two more of these bolts here. And your Around the Block has a rear rack on it, so we're going to use that. We're going to use the same eyelet here for the rear rack and the fender. Now it's my preference to put the rear rack towards the inside of the bike, towards the center of the bike, and then the strut on the outside here, and then you feed the bolt through and then simply screw it back into the frame. There you go. Again, being gentle, not too hard. And then we'll just attach the rear one to the rear eyelet over here. Being gentle. And then we'll just repeat the same process for it over here.

I noticed on that strut, that was kind of cool, it was actually a little on the tight side for the bolt, so I just used my screwdriver and just gave it just a little tweak there to open it up. This one's going to need it too, actually. Oh, just a little stick in there, and there we go. Attach that guy. There you go. So, you just saw me do the whole process basically in real-time. I don't know how long the video is. Maybe 20 minutes. It may take you up to an hour if it's your first time. I assembled something I hadn't assembled a couple of days ago and said that I should be able to do it in 20 minutes. It actually took me 35 minutes. No big deal. So anyway, there we go. We got the fenders onto the Around the Block. I know that you can do it too. If you run into any problems, just give us a call. All right? We'll walk you through it if this video isn't helpful enough. Okay, cool. Thank you so much for watching and getting to believe in yourself.