In a sales meeting in 1909, renowned car maker and engineer Henry Ford is documented as saying “customers can have any colour they like so long as it's black”. The design team at Ass Savers have obviously been paying attention to their history of design lessons, as their newly launched Win Wing Mark 2, at first glance at least, follows the same ethos laid down by Henry Ford.
In actual fact of course, they are offering more colours than just black and the design changes are more than just skin deep too, but who let facts get in the way of a good headline standfirst
Since its launch in autumn 2022, the Win Wing has won many plaudits from cyclists of all disciplines who wanted an easy-to-fit, simple, efficient and rattle-free mudguard for their bike. We had a prototype to test before the launch of the Mk 1 and absolutely loved it. The original graced the back of many different bikes at Gravel Union Towers and was used everywhere from splashy road rides to sludgy woodland slithers on a mountain bike and it did everything with aplomb.
If the Mk 1 Win Wing was so good, why did the designers feel the need to change it? We put this question to the Ass Savers team and the answer was simple – they wanted the Mk2 version to be Stronger, Gentler and Darker.
Stronger covered two different issues – partly to make the wishbone which forms the structure of the Win Wing better able to cope with the demands of off-road environments, but also to make it slightly more “courier-proof”. Ass Savers manufacture all their products in Gothenberg, Sweden and then ship them all over the world. To reduce the environmental and financial costs of this shipping to a minimum, the packaging needs to be lightweight and that necessitates making the product as strong as possible.
Gentler was to do with reducing any damage (no matter how minor) to the paintwork of the bike that the Win Wing was mounted to. The mixture of expensive paintwork, potentially lightweight carbon tubing, typical winter mud-sand-grit paste and movement-induced vibration can be a killer combination and there was the potential for the original Win Wing to mark the paintwork of the seatstays. Even with soft rubbery feet and straps, the designers wanted to remove the potential for any marking of paintwork, so every Win Wing now ships with some clear polyurethane “frame saving stickers” to “eliminate the need for worry”.
Darker might be slightly tongue-in-cheek, but it is true that a black wishbone does probably look better when fitted to your gravelly pride and joy than the grey colour of the Mark 1. In fact, arguably it doesn’t just look better – the black colourway actually helps the Win Wing disappear into the background. When there is still reticence among some cyclists to use a mudguard at all, having one that neatly blends in, while still offering full protection could be seen as a selling point in itself.
For anyone who loves a pop of colour on their gravel bikes, Ass Savers say that although the wishbone and straps are going to be none-more-black from now on, you will still be able to buy the mudguard flap in a variety of funky colours/designs.
Clearance on a 700x42mm gravel tyre
Clearance on a 29x2.25” XC MTB tyre
The Win Wing Mk 2 will be offered in two sizes – the 64-gram road version, which works on tyres up to 35mm and the 72-gram gravel version which works on tyres up to 60mm. We’ve used both sizes before and they’ve been absolutely bombproof. When run on an XC MTB on really gnarly singletrack descents you do get occasionally tyre rubbing, but that’s using them well outside their design envelope. If you run one on your road, adventure or gravel bike you’re practically guaranteed to get no-faff fitting and rattle-free operation. And most importantly, you should end up with a clean, dry arse and that’s got to be worth a €26 investment, doesn’t it?
Available now from www.ass-savers.com and through their network of dealers. The Stealth black colourway is only available “while stocks last”.