Bike Maintenance

Forrester76
Forrester76 Posts: 25
edited March 2011 in Road beginners
Hi
Probably a ridiculous question but..... Is it possible to put a quick release front wheel onto a bike the wrong way around ?

The only reason I ask is that I competed in my first race last weekend, I took the wheel off to get my bike into the car, during the race I noticed my quick release bar was on the opposite side of my bike......

Thanks

Claire

Comments

  • craker
    craker Posts: 1,739
    It doesn't matter which side the lever goes.

    Some tyres are directional (am I thinking of mountain bike nobblies here?) but even then the difference in performance will be minimal.

    If you've got a computer sensor on one side of the wheel then you'll end up with no signal for your bike computer.

    Can't think of anything else off hand.
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    I think it's just convention to have them both on the left. That way I ensure the computer always works!
  • Lillywhite
    Lillywhite Posts: 742
    Forrester76 wrote:
    during the race I noticed my quick release bar was on the opposite side of my bike......

    That's means that the wheel was going backwards :oops: .
    I trust, however, it didn't affect your performance in the race. :wink:

    Many eagle eyed people noticed that Rob Penn in last year's BBC programme about building his dream bike had his front wheel in the wrong way.

    Having the quick release the wrong way round on the rear wheel doesn't look right near the cassette so should be avoided.
  • Peddle Up!
    Peddle Up! Posts: 2,040
    mr_si wrote:
    If you've got a computer sensor on one side of the wheel then you'll end up with no signal for your bike computer.

    Yep! done that. :roll:
    Purveyor of "up" :)
  • CiB
    CiB Posts: 6,098
    mr_si wrote:
    It doesn't matter which side the lever goes..
    When the front axle is assembled, one cone + lock nut can be nipped up tightly before the axle meets the wheel, to prevent the cone being unscrewed or screwed up by the wheel rotation. It's easier if this nipping up is done away from the wheel.

    When the axles & bearings + grease are then assembled into the hub, the cone that you screw down to very precise finger tightness to get the sewing machine smoothness needs to be nipped up with its lock nut without turning the cone any further. This can be a doddle, but can be a bit fiddly; depends on the wheel and any other factors.

    So. You have one side nicely nipped up, the other potentially not so secure. You want the fail-safe scenario - if the wheel does start to turn the cone you want the potentially looser one to unscrew away from the hub, not into it. So you always want the nipped-up cone to be on the right where it should stay tight, and the other one on the left where it doesn't matter if the wheel tries to unscrew it as the fork will hold it in place, instead of it winding into the hub and locking the wheel up.

    Every wheel I've built has the fail-safe on the left ,along with the QR.

    Verbose, but accurate. :wink:
  • Lillywhite
    Lillywhite Posts: 742
    CiB wrote:
    Verbose, but accurate. :wink:

    Good post. Very informative. :wink:
  • slowondefy2
    slowondefy2 Posts: 348
    So... you don't need to put the wheel on backwards occasionally to unwind the hub? :D

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