How to remove wheel with rear-facing dropouts?

jrab

Probably a silly question, but my only experience so far is geared bikes with QRs.

If you have rear-facing drop-outs, how do you easily remove the rear wheel (eg to fix puncture)? Only way I can see involves breaking the chain, or am I missing something?

Richard

redvee

Undo the wheelnuts and push the wheel forward into the fram and drop the chain off the chainwheel inside and off the rear sprocket outside so that you have plenty of slack in the chain.
To replace locate the chain on the rear sprocket first then onto the chainring and rotate the pedals to seat the chain full on the chainring then pull the wheel back towards you to tnesion the chain. When finished wash your hands as there is no way of doing tha above and keeping your hands clean unless you wear latex gloves.

dennisn

Oh no, I can't resist. Someone stop me.

Pull the wheel away from the front of the bike.

Too late. sorry

Dennis Noward

meagain

I resisted....

jrab

Thanks Redvee for the constructive reply. Seems others missed the point about getting the chain out of the way first.....

Guess I was thinking the axle would be all the way into the dropout (as on a geared bike) and so wouldn't move forwards against the frame or backwards against the chain, with not enough slack to get chain off teeth. I suppose you use those little bolts (chaintugs?) to stop the axle going to the end of the dropout? If so you'd have to wind them in to allow the wheel in to the end of the dropout first?

Sorry for the amateur questions, not familiar with fixed/SS ways. Have a box of spare bits that will almost make a bike, apart from a frame - wanted to make sure I understood implications of each type of dropout before wasting time & money.

Cheers,
Richard.

dennisn

JRAB wrote:

Thanks Redvee for the constructive reply. Seems others missed the point about getting the chain out of the way first.....

Cheers,
Richard.

Hope you didn't take me wrong. Didn't mean to offend. It was just like I said, I just couldn't resist.

Dennis Noward

rb1956

JRAB wrote:

Guess I was thinking the axle would be all the way into the dropout (as on a geared bike) and so wouldn't move forwards against the frame or backwards against the chain, with not enough slack to get chain off teeth. I suppose you use those little bolts (chaintugs?) to stop the axle going to the end of the dropout? If so you'd have to wind them in to allow the wheel in to the end of the dropout first?

Unless the original builder was a lunatic, there's always clearance in front of the axle to allow the wheel to be moved forward to release the chain. Chain tugs are not essential, normally one just pulls the wheel back by hand, and the compression imparted by the axle-nuts/quick release, often combined with serrated washers, is sufficient to hold the wheel in place. Chain-tugs can make it easier to adjust your chain tension and keep the wheel centred in the frame, and give a neat appearance if you buy the nice MKS tugs rather than the cheap BMX ones. If you do use chain-tugs, then yes, you will need to ease them off to allow the axle to move forward.

By the way, technically, rearward facing slots for the rear axle are not "dropouts", but simply rear fork-ends.

jrab

Thanks guys, all is becoming clearer now.

All I need now is an interesting frame to pop up on the Bay, and a way of convincing the wife that 5 bikes is better than 4 (especially when she thinks I only actually have 3......!)

Dennis, apologies, I may have had a bit of a sense-of-humour failure - 11pm, rubbish day at work, etc.

Cheers,
Richard.

stickman

Cycle speedway frame/forks cro-mo £99 new.

hugo15

I found this a good help

http://www.roadcyclinguk.com/news/artic ... editorial1

dreamlx10

If you have rear-facing drop-outs

You mean "track ends" of course. Drop outs are for freewheels and geared bikes !

meagain

dreamlx10 wrote:

If you have rear-facing drop-outs

You mean "track ends" of course. Drop outs are for freewheels and geared bikes !

No, he means rear facing axle slots IMO.