When a large blue envelope turns up in your office with a Goteborg, Sweden postmark and the words 'Ass Savers' in big letters on the front, it is not entirely unsurprising that you get one or two unusual looks from your colleagues.
Ass Savers is not actually a Scandinavian sex toy company but the manufacturers of an innovative mudguard that can be easily fitted to the saddles of most road and mountain bikes. At between £5 and £7.99, depending on which model you go for and where you buy it from, they are also a relatively cheap way of adding protection to your rear as winter draws in.
I was sent two test Ass Savers, one in black and one in white, and these were both 'Ass Savers Extended', a slightly longer version of the traditional Ass Savers mudguard they have been manufacturing since 2012.
Now I have to confess that before I was sent these review Ass Savers that I have actually been a user of them for a while. Having bought a Condor road bike without mudguard eyes, I needed something that would keep me from getting a long brown mudstain up my cycling jersey and had found Ass Savers online, when they won 2012 Product of the Year in the Bike Minimalism Awards. At just 15 grams they are substantially lighter than any other mudguard on the market and my testing over the past 12 months of the product has been fairly extensive.
In short, the team behind Ass Savers have come up with a brilliant idea. The idea of a saddle/seat mounted mudguard is not new but they seem to have executed it better than anyone else and I am not surprised I am seeing them more and more often when I go out on club rides. I rode a 180km ride last week in the pouring rain across England (hardly surprising in October) and it did a really good job of keeping spray away from me. The shorter version is less good for those following as a fair amount of spray still comes backwards at them, but unless you have a proper set of mudguards closely fitted to the wheel then you are unlikely to ever get that result.
Fitting an Ass Saver requires a Stanley knife and/or a good pair of scissors but I have fitted them to three bikes now and only had an issue with one. This was when I tried to fit it to my Fizik Arione saddle which has a saddle bag that attaches to the saddle rails. This means there is less space to fit the Ass Saver and also that where the bag fits onto the saddle rail it takes the space where the Ass Saver is trying to notch onto the rail. It took a good 20 minutes of fiddling to get them to work together - and a fair amount of cursing - but once it was firmly in place the two peacefully co-existed for a seven hour ride.
The Ass Saver comes in multiple colour variations and plenty of corporate businesses and cycling teams are having them made in their own designs. I saw that Rapha Condor JLT had their own versions made and there are currently 16 different looks available direct from the Ass Savers shop.
As for the company, is it suitably eco-friendly and rooted in cycling as one would hope. Here's what they say about themselves: "We are five designers based out of Gothenburg, arguably the wettest city in all of Sweden. We also have unimaginably tiny satellite offices in Barcelona and San Francisco.
"Sadly or gladly, none of us has matured past the point of twelve year old boys when we saw the world brought to life as we frenetically propelled ourselves as fast as we could down the streets.
"It's out of these memories of this pedal-powered love that we create products to celebrate and encourage the joy of biking. It is also our belief that we have an obligation to design responsibly to protect the environment as much as we can. That's why you won't find nasty materials or unnecessary packaging on any Ass Savers product.
"We were definitely not the first to have the idea of attaching something to the saddle to protect ourselves from the worst road spray. The concept is as old as rain and bikes without mudguards but where others have failed, we succeeded through the relentless development of literally hundreds of prototypes, a deep knowledge of sustainable manufacturing and passion for brands that resonates with its followers.
"Our mudguards are all made in the Swedish town of Borås in a very modern, 14001 ISO-certified and eco award winning facility. To have the production less than an hour's drive away from the office means a lot to us. We can assure you that all the production waste is taken care of in the most responsible way and that the workers can make our products in a safe workplace while getting a decent salary for their efforts. Our raw material comes from France and Spain and is shipped with road transport directly to the factory. We want you to know that we work very hard to ensure the best possible procedure in every step of the way to finished product. Being a small producer makes it difficult to influence other companies but as we grow we will continue to push these matters even harder.
"You won't find any unnecessary packaging on our mudguards in your local bike shop. We believe good products sell themselves and that you as a customer don't want to pay for something that immediately goes in to the trash anyways. Our mudguards weigh only 15 grams. That probably makes them the lightest rear mudguard in the world. It also means we use less than 10% of the material needed to produce your average plastic beavertail fender. That feels good in our hearts. Needless to say, we are not perfect. Only about 65% of our production are made from recycled PP. To be able to offer you the world of colors, we need to purchase virgin material. We are however working hard to source recycled PP in different colors and our goal is to be 100% in the recycling loop."
Trying the new Extended version of the Ass Saver, I can say that I was really happy with the newer version. During a dreadfully rainy London week it kept my backside drier than most of the rest of my body and kept the usual dirt and road gubbins from covering my jacket. At the price I cannot think of any reason why any cyclist wouldn't want to get an Ass Saver staight away.
As for this review, I hate to think what kind of search traffic Sportive.com is now going to pick up as people search for something entirely different.
Ass Savers Cycling Mudguard
£5 to £7.99, depending on outlet and design
Visit the Ass Savers website
0 Comments