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63 About this deal
Ass Saver have produced a great new product in the Ass Saver Win Wing. Great for your gravel bike, easy to attach and won’t mark your seat stays… This is not really a fender for everyone. Some don’t like the look of this gray recycled plastic loop hanging over your rear wheel. Some really need the total protection of proper full-coverage fenders. And some – like our own Editor-in-Chief – would rather have a wet butt than nasty muddy water bottles. And those are all valid concerns. It’s so simple that it makes you wonder why it didn’t already exist. And, at the same time, its clever and minimal design leads you to admire the thought process and engineering that went into it." The Win Wing Road fits practically any skinny tire bike, protecting the rider in even the worst conditions. Ideal for winter training or if you want to add some comfort to your puristic urban ride. The Win Wing won't rattle or jam, and at less than 75g , you won't even notice it's there. if you plan on pedaling your gravel bike or ATB in wet and muddy conditions, the Win Wing is a no-brainer."
The Win Wing looks strange at first glance. I am an avid user of the basic Ass Saver (a plastic flap that basically slips under your saddle and as the name suggests, saves your ass) but the Win Wing’s design is really taking things to the next level. We have yet again rewritten the rules of fender design with our new, ultra-lightweight, clip-on performance mudguard – the radical Win Wing.Stopping mud and spray before it hits your dropper post’s slider and main seal is sure to keep the post running smoother, longer.
The fender blade is made from 80% recycled polypropylene and has five holes that are used to connect it to the Wishbone. There are three in the front-center of the blade that are used to insert the peg at the top of the arc. Each of these options changes the angle of the wing and enables bikes of varying sizes to achieve the correct angle. Ass Savers recommends a horizontal to “tail-up” position to maximize performance. I mounted it using the middle hole, which tilted the blade slightly upward on a size large drop-bar 29er. There are two additional holes that match with the two outer Wishbone pegs—one on each “wing.” Once they’re all attached, it’s remarkably solid, given its scant 71 gram weight.
Fitting the Ass Savers Win Wing
After taking a look at the product template document, I sent them a design, and a couple of months later, a big box of them arrived at my doorstep. They looked great, but I still wasn’t overly excited about using one. After so many years without fenders, why start now? Fast forward a few weeks into the cold and damp season, and my tune has changed. Read on to see why in this full Ass Savers Win Wing review, and then scroll to the bottom of the post to watch Neil’s complementary video review. The key to understanding how the Win Wing works lies in physics: water and mud leave the wheel in a straight line from the tangential point of release. By shielding only the upper rear quarter of the wheel, the Win Wing eliminates spray from reaching the critical areas of the rider with a minimum of material. There are other clip-on rear mudguards on the market, but the Win Wing has taken a fresh approach to the problem. Made up of only four components, which are easy to assemble, the Win Wing attaches in seconds and can be swapped between bikes with ease. At the heart of the design is the wishbone holder made from glass fiber reinforced PA (polyamide), that attaches to the seat stays with two neatly fitting rubber straps. The rubber straps have been cleverly designed to sit between the wishbone and seat stays to offer your paint some protection. Ass Savers recommends fitting the wishbone close enough to the tire to achieve between 5-10mm clearance to the blade once fitted. The polypropylene blade easily snaps into position onto the studs molded into the wishbone and there are three positions available to allow for varying seat stay angles. A horizontal, or slightly upward tilting blade is optimum. There’s a helpful guide printed onto the underside of the blade to help achieve the best setup. The simple attachment system also means that it’s super easy to swap between bikes and it is also compatible with a wide range of tyres. This has been a godsend as I have accumulated more and more test bikes to ride and fitting anything more complicated (or permanent) on each would be too much of an effort. The Win Wing takes about half a minute to take off from one bike and attach to another - and while swapping it around I’ve noticed it’s also not scratched my seat stays (I would still recommend attaching a piece of frame protection tape as a precaution). And if you’re worried about theft, Ass Savers has designed it with a little zip-tie hole so you can zip-tie it to your seat stays semi-permanently. By shielding only the upper rear quarter of the wheel, the Win Wing eliminates spray from reaching the critical areas of the rider with a minimum of material.”
While bikes of old all had a lot more symmetry, a number of modern bikes tweak their stays side-to-side a bit to either maximize tire clearance around the drivetrain or to fit a disc brake caliper into the rear end somewhere tidy. Thanks to it's sophisticated simplicity and careful choice of materials, the Win-Wing is virtually indestructible. With only four components (competitors use as much as 40 components) it's not that much that can go wrong. The glassfiber reinforced wishbone holder is both flexible and tough and the rubber straps are virtually indestructible.
As the gravel segment expands, cyclists face new challenges. The issue of having dirt thrown in your face is a well known problem among mountain bikers. With huge clearances for wide tires in the front fork, gravel riders are now facing a similar issue. The Win Wing Gravel fits practically any gravel bike, protecting the rider in even the worst conditions. No matter the terrain, on-road or off, the Win Wing won’t rattle or jam, and with only 72g, you won’t even notice it’s there. Effectively, the Win Wing stops all mud & water from about the seat clamp and higher on most bikes. Boulder, and Colorado more broadly, is heralded as getting 300 days of sunshine a year (there’s a reason I have chosen to live here) and, even in the summer “monsoon” season, the routine afternoon showers are short-lived, and (of late) less substantial all around. As such, I’ve never felt the need to outfit any of my bikes with permanent fenders, though they do lend a certain utilitarian panache to a classic skinny-tubed steel steed, imo. Sure, it would be nice to have on my commuter but in my current location it’s far from necessary and I recognize that half of that desire would be motivated purely by the aesthetic glint of hammered alloy. While the two-part Win Wing install takes a few seconds longer, I was already more confident in the rigid strut-like mount design before I even had it on the bike. I found the install to be straightforward; whereas soft, saddle-mounted fenders just feel like a token-but-ineffective solution to wet rides, the Win Wing feels confidently made and well thought out. And, even for plastic, its profile is sleek on the bike.
In person, the Win Wing’s patent-pending Wishbone is quite impressive. It’s very well-engineered and seems equally well-made. It consists of three pieces: a fiberglass-reinforced polyamid Nylon arch and two TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) straps. The straps each have a T-shaped base that fits within the molded foot part of the Wishbone. These provide a nice grippy and non-abrasive connection to the seat stays. The straps wrap around the seat stays, thread through a slot at the inside of each wishbone leg, and then connect to a molded tooth on the outside. There’s also an additional slot on the drive-side leg for an “anti-theft” zip tie. Ass Savers offers two versions of the Win Wing: one for road bikes with tires up to 38mm and one for larger dirt and gravel tires up to 60mm (2.35″). The one that’s tested here is the gravel version for larger tires. I tried it on two bikes, my Tumbleweed Stargazer with 29 x 2.35” tires and another test bike with 2.4s—the gray one shown in many of these photos. Neil also tested his with 27.5 x 2.6″ tires, as you’ll learn in the video at the bottom of the post. If you are just looking for a lightweight, simple solution to keep your butt clean & dry ( or a bit drier if you ride in constant rain) on road, gravel, or cross-country rides… then, the Win Wing is a good option to consider. And if you want to keep mud off your dropper post, that might just be a very welcome added bonus, too.As described in our original Win Wing review, there are a few key steps that must be taken to ensure optimal performance when installing the Ass Savers Win Wing 2. While mountain bikers are used to mud, gravel bikers face a different challenge. Anyone who has ridden on a wet gravel road is familiar with the mixture of fine sand and water that seems to be designed especially to seek and destroy bearings, not to mention what it does to your eyes on a long ride. In reality, the Win Wing fits a lot of bikes that simply won’t fit conventional fenders – no fender mounts required. But the biggest compatibility feature might just be that wide 19-60mm tire width clearance range. That covers almost every road, fixie, all-road, cyclocross, gravel, trekking, and cross-country bike out there. The straps are made from ultra-tough TPU and should be pulled as tight as you can comfortably do by hand. If you experience that the mudguard is not stable, try to use the next hole in the strap.
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