Best fork gaiters

[pbrosnan]

HI all,

My fork gaiters are falling apart ... again. I think they're just some generic type that I bought from one of the online vintage British bike sites. A mate of mine reckons that I should be able to find a 'better' and possibly more 'authentic' product. Is he right? My view is that these types of consumables are all made ion a big factory in China. Any thoughts?

[minetymenace]

Have you seen this?

[lathejack]

I recently bought some of the Wassell heavy duty fork gaitors, although I haven't fitted them yet.
These are for my Starfire.

This shows the Wassell item on the left, and the cheaper unbranded item on the right. The Wassell gaitors are thicker and slightly harder rubber, and claim to have a higher natural rubber content.
The cheaper unbranded gaitor on the right is so thin and soft it won't stand up, and to stop it flopping over it needs support from the Wassell item.

These next two gaitors are for the later OIF forks, Wassell item on the left and slightly cheaper unbranded item on the right. There's not much difference between them this time, but the Wassell gaitors are slightly firmer rubber.

[kommando]

If the gaitors have a white powdery deposit on them chances are they are the better ones, it's a mould release agent.

[Jeff K]

Have you seen this?

I noticed that my posts on that one were two years ago. I checked on the couple of pairs that I still have on the shelf and they are still in the package and still "good". And yet when I used one of the sets on the B40 project years back. They "rotted" away to a stack of rubber washers in a few months. So I would guess it is either the sunshine, and this bike is not kept outside or it is the ozone in the air that destroys these fast.
Jeff