Right deposit on new bike put down and I collect tomorrow am. Hoping I have made the right decision, but the geometry of the new bike seems really nice (felt right and I tried out many in the shop) - know nothing about the make (nothing new there then) but its a women's specific frame in a 52cm which made the top tube length more suited to me, so I shouldn't have to shorten the stem etc.... and I have managed to wrangle the £75 trade in and keep my existing wheelset... in fact the guy in the shop was insistent that I kept my old wheels because they are better than the ones on the new bike, so I get the new bike - £75 and 2 sets of wheel in exchange for £695 and the old bike.... I went with a Fuji Finest 1.1 C (feels like I am buying a camera mind you but there we go! It has really good clearances for mudguards (yippee) and will take a rack. Gearing is a compact 50/34 but with a 12-32 cassette fitted so the RD will take bigger should I require it - hopefully I won't!
http://www.fujibikes.com/bike/details/finest-11-c
So problem of fitting mudguards has been dealt with... I
'ed.
Possibly not the cheapest way to deal with it, but
n-1 in exchange for n+1 and some ££££ happens tomorrow.