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It's more the mud than the looks .It can slow you down a bit or completely .I was looking at a few photos from Bigfella of his route to the Alpine Rally .Tilly would have got all bound up .

Thanks for the pic of the bike Sibbo - they're definitely R65 forks. One option could be to recreate your existing fork brace but with an extra inch and a half height on it and reattach your existing mudguard. Alternatively look around for a twin-shock Brembo front end and stick that on with a proper GS mudguard.

It's only money...

Looks to me a couple of rectangles of 1/16" thk stock about the size of a playing card would do it fine. Bolt to the brace where the plastic is now, raise the plastic up and bolt to the top of the rectangles. Or just piggy back another brace on top of the existing brace......no welding needed.

Hi-tech, from a racetrack near you -

George Ryals wrote:Looks to me a couple of rectangles of 1/16" thick stock about the size of a playing card would do it fine. Bolt to the brace where the plastic is now, raise the plastic up and bolt to the top of the rectangles. Or just piggy back another brace on top of the existing brace......no welding needed.

That's about what I had in mind ,the brace on this is pretty thin material ,I wonder if separating it from the plastic guard would weaken it .

To be looked at carefully .... but I do need some more clearance .

George Ryals wrote: Or just piggy back another brace on top of the existing brace......no welding needed.

How does that work George?

Sibbo, I can't see the guard offering any additional strength at all to the brace.

Getting the guard raised and aligned properly would be the biggest challenge I think.

Here's a photo of the arrangement .The brace itself has about 30 mm clearance above the tire but the front of the guard only has about 15mm clearance and is a highly efficient mud trap .If the brace remained where it is and the plastic was lifted the brace would probably not interfere too much with the mud , it would pass around it I think .

I think that's what George had in mind ?

The idea is to separate the mud guard from the existing brace, obtain a new brace, bolt the new brace to the top of the existing brace (where the mud guard was originally mounted to the brace), bolt the mud guard to the new brace. I haven't done this, but it looks doable and would solve the mud jam problem. New holes may have to be drilled/enlarged in some bits.

George Ryals wrote:The idea is to separate the mud guard from the existing brace, obtain a new brace, bolt the new brace to the top of the existing brace (where the mud guard was originally mounted to the brace), bolt the mud guard to the new brace. I haven't done this, but it looks doable and would solve the mud jam problem. New holes may have to be drilled/enlarged in some bits.

The new top brace wouldn't need to be a real one , just something to hold the guard firmly .

A couple of hoops made from 25x3mm flat, one in front and one at the rear. Strength would be fine, but getting the bends just where they need to be as well as the holes would be the challenge.