Car sales have dropped by 30 percent over the last five years — a change fueled by the great recession, but also shifting preferences for urban living. Bicycles are replacing automobiles as the commuter vehicle of choice for many, and while biking is great for the heart and planet, rain slicked streets can leave a nasty rooster tail on a hundred-dollar hoodie and ruin a rider's day. Demographic trends are creating design opportunities and interesting new products like the Musguard fender.
The Musguard fender is a 35 gram strip of polypropylene plastic that has been designed to wrap snugly around a bike's tubular frame and easily transform into a rigid, backsplash-blocking fender if storm clouds gather. The design is minimal, elegant, and to cap off its impressive list of hipster bona fides, the Musguard fender is made from recycled plastic and manufactured in Europe.
The fender was developed by Jurij Lozic, a member of the car-less creative class who started working on the project while earning a degree in product design. His studies had equipped him with a strong understanding of the properties of plastic sheeting, and his experience navigating city streets on a bike after downpours made the market need drippingly obvious.
"Fixies are all about minimalism, simplicity and slick looks; that's why I started developing Musguard," says Lozic. "I really wasn't willing to offer anything less but perfect, so I really took my time to perfect it, make every feature work the best it could," he says. "Endless iterations were made before settling for the final one. It was a long period of testing, trial and error."
Lozic's thorough design process led to an elegant solution, but just as he was nearing the end of his project, a critical mass of competitors appeared. The Foldnfix is a foldable, rigid fender, theRaintail is meant to be bolted on to a bike permanently and works like a drawer, and the Plume works in an uncomfortably similar manner to the Musguard. Despite the pack of competitors that have passed him by, Lozic isn't worried. "I don't think the market is to crowded at all," he says. "The polypropylene fender is a relatively new idea, so it will evolve even further I think. The urban cycling market is booming; there is enough place for everybody. I believe healthy and fair competition is good for progress."
With a product this simple, every cut, proportion, and color choice matters. "There are a lot of details I am proud of; every inch of this product is thought through," says Lozic. "The fender gains its stability from a combination of grooves and use of the material's natural elasticity. There are two grooves at the bottom that make the fender easy to roll and also stand firmly when rolled on your frame." The Musguard might not look like much, but it's the product of a half decade of R&D.
The most surprising thing about the Musguard is that it took until 2013 for a product this simple and useful to reach the market, but demographic transformations often take a long time to manifest in product form. The first cupholder appeared in a car in 1957, but didn't become a nearly universal feature until suburbanization reached its apex in the minivan-crazy 1980s. Fortunately, crowdfunding and hackerspaces allow designers to put the pedal to the metal and respond to changes in culture quicker than ever before.
The Musguard fender is raising funds on Kickstarter until June 22.
Photos Courtesy: Musguard
