Mercane: wet weather protection

I happen to think that  the rear wheel on the Mercane Wide Wheel looks pretty cool, but equally its crap when the road is wet (I mean even if its not actually raining, but has been before you go out). The wheel throws road crap all over your pants, which if you happen to be commuting to work sucks.

Its pretty easy to see that its going to throw muck all over you because of how short the mud guard is (seen more clearly in this picture)

I mean it has its up side, which is that when you back it against something its not going to smack into and crack the mudgard (which would suck).

So I decided that a super cheap solution would just be some duct tape.

which is also easily removable when fine weather arrives too.

What I did was stick some on the top that then hung over, then add a little more to that and fold it over, then add some from underneath to have it stuck on both sides of the guard. This has the effect of

• preventing dirt getting in and needing to reapply often
• making it just that bit stiffer.

This is actually my mark 2 version because last week at work (where it rained on and off all day) I only had grey duct tape in my car and I wanted black.

While I was planning this, I thought also that the rear guard was crying out for some sort of "corporate branding" (something Mercane seems to have omitted on this scoot, its almost brandless).

You can also see here how far the mud flap extends behind the wheel, compared with how it was before I did this:

While I had it up on the stand (putting on the duct tape) I decided that the front wheel was spraying stuff full time at the join between the bottom plastic cover and the top cast aluminium deck, which didn't look too water proof to me. So

I've extended it up under the arch there too, and as it happens the duct tape is almost perfectly the right width for that cover too.

I put the top arch cover on first, and extended it down into the bottom area, then went across. I also went around the front edge too. Naturally this comes off easily when dry times arrive (and can be cleaned up with a rag and a bit of metho if you're super worried about anything.

While on eBay buying my Ducati decal I also got one for the front too ...

because Mercane didn't brand the goosneck either ...

I think this little bit of preventative maintenance will prevent muck and water getting into the battery and controller area, which can't be a good thing!

Duct tape = $6 for 30 meters (x 48mm or about 2inch) ... should be good for quite a while.
Decals = $5 (who cares how long they last ;-)

So there you go, something practical and something fun.