The Best Friend-er Any Bike Can Have

Vector Go is a fly type fender designed for urban bike riders. It is designed with a universal form and with a flexible silicon rubber body making it go along with any urban bike be it a hybrid, mountain bike, or an endurance bike. It is equipped with two flexible collar clamps that get attached to the seat stay bars of the bike increasing structural rigidity.

The lightweight and inexpensive material makes it an ideal add-on to your bike , protecting you from mud and water splashes while commuting. The material’s excellent property of hydrophobicity makes it easy to clean. The entire structure can be stored easily when not in use. The lever screws can be replaced with hex screws if the intention of the user is to attach the fender to his/her bike permanently.

Design Team

Vishruth Kumar ( MDes, Product Design, National Institute of Design, India)

Sahil Thappa (Facilitator, National Institute of Design, India)

Bikes are one of the most personalized products available around us. Each component of the bike is designed meticulously as per the user’s need. Often the user tends to customize his/her bike to reflect his/her personality. Even small and trivial components such as lights, bottle holders, baskets, mudguards, reflectors, etc. can be customized to fit the user’s needs and personality.

As part of Design Project 1 in the National Institute of Design, India, we had to design a simple product having minimum mechanisms and components focussing on details. Being an engineering graduate, I was always fascinated by bikes and I wanted to explore the design of bike components and I found my interest in fenders. Since most of the urban bikes do not come with fenders, I always had trouble choosing fenders which are of different company and its forms do not go along with the bike. Most of the time I am not satisfied with the shielding it provides during monsoon season. Another problem of it was the shaking which leads to loosening of the screw, and eventually, the fenders start rubbing against the tire while riding. So usually I end up removing the fender when not needed. These trigger points inspired me to work in the area of redesigning the fenders for urban bikes.

The coursework started off with creating a list of projects which interest me and creating a rough mind map. In the starting weeks, it was filled with brainstorming and idea-sharing sessions among batchmates and course facilitator Sahil Thappa. Being a young faculty, he had an innovative approach for the process which I liked in the beginning. He shared an ample amount of design ideas and inspirations from the ongoing…