Pulling wheel out of horizontal dropouts

aztecboy
aztecboy Posts: 384
edited January 2008 in Workshop
I can see why vertical dropouts were invented now, on a vigourous climb today I pulled the back wheel out of the horizontal dropouts on my 531 Pearson and shagged my new paintjob to boot. I thought the QR was tight, but not tight enough!

Anyone else suffered from this?

I would be facinated why horizontal dropouts came into being if anyone knows.

Ted
aztecboy

Comments

  • redddraggon
    redddraggon Posts: 10,862
    aztecboy wrote:
    I can see why vertical dropouts were invented now, on a vigourous climb today I pulled the back wheel out of the horizontal dropouts on my 531 Pearson and shagged my new paintjob to boot. I thought the QR was tight, but not tight enough!

    Anyone else suffered from this?

    I would be facinated why horizontal dropouts came into being if anyone knows.

    Ted

    For fixies and singlespeeds to enable you to move the axel to keep the chain taut?
    I like bikes...

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  • stevec205gti
    stevec205gti Posts: 366
    I pulled the back wheel out of my old touring bike accelerating out onto a rounabout on the A34 up in Stone coming home from school once - scared the poo out of me!!!!
    Has the head wind picked up or the tail wind dropped off???
  • aztecboy
    aztecboy Posts: 384
    You don't half stop quick I found!
    aztecboy
  • oldwelshman
    oldwelshman Posts: 4,733
    aztecboy wrote:
    I can see why vertical dropouts were invented now, on a vigourous climb today I pulled the back wheel out of the horizontal dropouts on my 531 Pearson and shagged my new paintjob to boot. I thought the QR was tight, but not tight enough!

    Anyone else suffered from this?

    I would be facinated why horizontal dropouts came into being if anyone knows.

    Ted

    A common mistake is not to clean the dropouts before putting wheels in after paint job.
    I bet they were coverred in new paint :)
    http://s290.photobucket.com/albums/ll245/oldwelshman/
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK5Bfqj5fxY
  • aztecboy
    aztecboy Posts: 384
    Not anymore :(
    aztecboy
  • El Gordo
    El Gordo Posts: 394
    Isn't that why single speed hubs are generally (but no always) solid axle with nuts rather than QR? QR's struggle to clamp with enough force.

    Rearward facing horizontal dropouts seem a whole lot safer.
  • stevec205gti
    stevec205gti Posts: 366
    El Gordo wrote:
    Isn't that why single speed hubs are generally (but no always) solid axle with nuts rather than QR? QR's struggle to clamp with enough force.

    Rearward facing horizontal dropouts seem a whole lot safer.

    Fixed wheels can uder go more force as they can be used to brake as well, i think that's why they're bolted down.

    Think about the rearward facing dropouts - if the wheel is loose it would fall out the back of the bike straight away! Forward facing dropouts will only be pulled out by pedalling, but the momentum of the bike will want to drive the wheel back to a stop.
    Has the head wind picked up or the tail wind dropped off???
  • mrushton
    mrushton Posts: 5,182
    El Gordo wrote:
    Isn't that why single speed hubs are generally (but no always) solid axle with nuts rather than QR? QR's struggle to clamp with enough force.

    Rearward facing horizontal dropouts seem a whole lot safer.

    The Surly Tuggnut comes with a small widget that allows one to use a q/r on a fixed.
    M.Rushton
  • terongi
    terongi Posts: 318
    stevec205gti wrote:
    Think about the rearward facing dropouts - if the wheel is loose it would fall out the back of the bike straight away!

    . . . only if you are riding without a chain!
  • ColinJ
    ColinJ Posts: 2,218
    edited January 2008
    I know two people who have recently pulled rear wheels out under load and in both cases it was due to poor QR skewers that couldn't bite into the dropouts hard enough. One was cheap and not up to the job and was one expensive and not up to the job. See what Sheldon Brown has to say here.

    I had a mate who was a bodybuilder when I got him into cycling. He would always pedal in a ridiculously high gear ratio, apparently thinking that gears were for wimps... One ride we were going up a 10% climb, me in 39/23 and him in something daft like 52/15. His eyes were bulging and he could hardly get the pedals round so I warned him that he'd either bugger up his knees or his bike. He persisted and a couple of seconds later his chain exploded. The rear wheel was still firmly in place in its forward-facing dropouts.

    From my experience, if you have decent quick releases, adjusted properly so that really bite into dropouts made of suitable material (i.e. not a super hard Ti alloy), you will not be able to pull the rear wheel out by pedalling no matter how strong you are - the chain will break before you can exert sufficient force.
  • stevec205gti
    stevec205gti Posts: 366
    terongi wrote:
    stevec205gti wrote:
    Think about the rearward facing dropouts - if the wheel is loose it would fall out the back of the bike straight away!

    . . . only if you are riding without a chain!

    Only on a single speed :P
    Has the head wind picked up or the tail wind dropped off???
  • aztecboy
    aztecboy Posts: 384
    Well you learn something everyday with this cycling lark, I always assumed QR skewers did the same job intrinsically.
    The skewer I am using on the back is the tacx one from my turbo.
    I swapped everything from my Dawes Audax (it broke sadly).
    The Dawes had vertical drops so the skewer never had much work to do. The Pearson (less some paint now) has horizontals.

    So do most frames with just end up with bare metal on the drop outs?
    aztecboy
  • aztecboy
    aztecboy Posts: 384
    ColinJ

    Thanks for the pointer to Sheldon, I didn't know that and I am glad I do now.

    Ted
    aztecboy
  • Jajacp
    Jajacp Posts: 79
    those tacxk quick releases are rubbish

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