- Now you guys will all know
from watching the videos on GMBN,
we absolutely love a hack.
And nothing beats a free one.
In this video, we're going to show you
how to make a mud guard.
This template that I'm drawing up will be
in the description down below,
and all you're going to need for it is a two litre bottle.
Right, okay, so you've downloaded your template,
now what I need to do is actually cut this out,
'cause I'm going to trace that,
put it on to the bottle, and all of that cut out.
So bear with me a second, while this just plays on.
So we've got our stencil cut out,
and at this point, if you haven't realised already,
this is going to be a front mud guard.
It's going to sit underneath the forks,
we're gonna ziptie that on, to make sure it's secure.
And it's just gonna stop that mud coming through the crown,
flicking up and hitting you in the face.
But it's on to the next step,
and that's preparing the bottle.
Okay, so on to that bottle now.
You're definitely gonna need a two litre bottle
that is quite cylindrical, like this one right here.
And what we're going to do, step one
is cut off that top.
We're gonna use a knife, so if you've got a knife,
be really careful using that.
You do not want to cut your fingers.
We're then going to cut around the bottom too,
and then we're going to cut it in half,
before putting that template on to it.
Okay, so I've cut the top and I've cut the bottom off.
Now I'm just going to cut it straight down in half,
so I've got one long, flat piece.
I'm just going to put my template on to it.
Okay, so I've got my bottle now cut up,
perfectly shaped for it.
I'm just gonna try and flatten that out a little bit.
It is quite stiff material.
We're then gonna get our template,
place that right on top,
and then we're going to get a Sharpie,
permanent marker, whatever you want,
and we're just gonna trace around this,
so we can cut it on to the plastic.
Okay, so the dots are aligned.
Take this back off.
And take a look at what my mud guard is going to be.
We're going to cut that out now.
We are definitely getting there.
You can see the shape of that
coming in quite clearly now.
What I'm going to do is just take away
some of these sharp edges, and slightly round them off.
Okay, now you're probably wondering,
how is this actually going to go on the bike?
Well you're going to use four zipties,
and this is where our hole punch comes in to play.
So let's put some holes in the mud guard,
so we can attach this on to the bike.
Okay, so you're going to need four zipties,
and eight holes on that mud guard.
I'm going to actually use a hole punch to do this,
it just makes it that little bit neater.
Of course, you can use a screw driver,
be really careful if you're doing that,
or the knife too, but it doesn't give you such a nice hole.
And you'll probably find you'll end up ripping
the bottle eventually, so this is a much better way,
of actually just making that mud guard
last a bit longer.
Okay, you probably can't see it,
but I've now put all the holes into the mud guard itself.
I'm going to thread the zipties through,
and then we're just going to go
and pop it on to the bike.
Right, okay, so now it is time to fit it on to the bike.
You're just going to pop it underneath that fork,
pull the zip ties, and then one by one,
I like to start up at the crown.
Okay, there we go.
It's fitted.
All that is left to do now
is just cut off these tails off the cable ties.
So just take your cable snips,
careful of the stanchions.
And you're actually going to cut these off.
Of course, now that the mud guard is on the bike,
there are loads of customizations you could do.
You could add some stickers on,
you can do different colours of plastic,
or you could even paint it.
You could spray it, do some design work,
do whatever you like.
You've got your mud guard now.
I'm gonna pop this sticker on,
and that is going to be the finishing touch on my one.
And I'll give that a super nice.
So there we go.
How to make a mud guard, for almost nothing.
You've probably got a two litre bottle lying around at home,
some scissors, zip ties.
Dead easy to do, and it's actually going to save
your face loads of times.
You'll be thankful for it once you've got it on the trails.
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Have a good one, see ya.