Ok I couldn't have planned this any better. After work I was looking over the bike and noticed a piece of safety wire stuck in my mud flap. Could it have made it into my tire? We'll never know, but it could have. So I'm leaving it on for good. Although I'll be trying different flap materials to see what seems to hold up the best. I think it looks pretty cool shaped like that, and it gets mighty dirty so its doing something I guess.