axle spacing issue

maevans

Hi all,

Forgive the noob question, but I wonder if you could help with an axle spacing issue. I've replaced the rear wheel on my old Raleigh.

Foolishly however, I just assumed the axle spacing was 130mm when it is actually 126mm. As the frame is steel I just eased (sweating profusely) the stays apart the 2mm on each end and got the wheel in there. That all seems fine and I'm not having any issues with the gears or anything.

However, as I found to my chagrin earlier, it is quite annoying when you get a puncture and need to swap the tube out - easing the stays apart is quite difficult, so ideally I'd like to get the axel spacing correct.

SO, I was wondering if the bits I've circled in red in the attached picture are spacers, and therfore whether i could remove one to get back to 126? My concern is that they're not spacers (I really know very little about wheels!) and that I'd only be removing one from one side of the wheel - is that a problem? Would that not mean the wheel sits closer to the stays on one side of the bike?

Thanks for the help!

redvee

If you take the axle spacers off the non drive side you'll need to get the wheel re-dished, which should be possible without re-spoking the wheel, you're only looking at a few mm.