Mind your QR lever, says Trek

ugo.santalucia

Bizarre accident, but I suppose nothing can be ruled out... or the small matter of a million bikes recall

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/bus ... /26149227/

dilatory

I saw this the other day and was left wondering... Surely if your QR is wide open you're in for a bad time anyway? It's like me saying I rode off with my stem bolts loose and my handlebars fell off, get to the lawyers!

bendertherobot

Third party part as well. I wonder how many millions are affected?

Smokin Joe

dilatory wrote:

I saw this the other day and was left wondering... Surely if your QR is wide open you're in for a bad time anyway? It's like me saying I rode off with my stem bolts loose and my handlebars fell off, get to the lawyers!

That's about it.

Operator mistake of the same kind that now has the rest of us having to put up with those irritating lawyer lips.

veronese68

It is a bit of a worry that people ride around with their QR's open. Unfortunately there is a guy at work that does this on his BSO. He uses the QR like an old style wing nut and just winds it up. I occasionally put it right without telling him if I notice. If I tell him he undoes it anyway. You just can't tell some people.

Monty Dog

We should just let Darwinian principles take effect....

dilatory

Veronese68 wrote:

It is a bit of a worry that people ride around with their QR's open. Unfortunately there is a guy at work that does this on his BSO. He uses the QR like an old style wing nut and just winds it up. I occasionally put it right without telling him if I notice. If I tell him he undoes it anyway. You just can't tell some people.

Didn't even begin to occur to me people would use them like this...

Smokin Joe

dilatory wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

It is a bit of a worry that people ride around with their QR's open. Unfortunately there is a guy at work that does this on his BSO. He uses the QR like an old style wing nut and just winds it up. I occasionally put it right without telling him if I notice. If I tell him he undoes it anyway. You just can't tell some people.

Didn't even begin to occur to me people would use them like this...

I've seen two people on decent road bikes who do that. It's yer MAMIL syndrome, they never grew up cycling and spending their early years cobbling bikes together out of bits and bobs, just straight out with a couple of grand on their first real bike and no clue how anything works.

Elfed

This problem can only apply to the people who can't index their gears, I mean, if you can't do that after all those YouTube vids, then what else do you need to understand????

veronese68

Monty Dog wrote:

We should just let Darwinian principles take effect....

Nearly wrote that very thing in my post.

MountainMonster

Smokin Joe wrote:

dilatory wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

It is a bit of a worry that people ride around with their QR's open. Unfortunately there is a guy at work that does this on his BSO. He uses the QR like an old style wing nut and just winds it up. I occasionally put it right without telling him if I notice. If I tell him he undoes it anyway. You just can't tell some people.

Didn't even begin to occur to me people would use them like this...

I've seen two people on decent road bikes who do that. It's yer MAMIL syndrome, they never grew up cycling and spending their early years cobbling bikes together out of bits and bobs, just straight out with a couple of grand on their first real bike and no clue how anything works.

Simply astonishing! Some people seem to lack common sense. I've never heard of someone using them that way, and struggle to see how someone would think that would work.

Maybe shops selling bikes should give a 5 minute crash course on the bare basics. Won't help the people who still think they are right, though.

JoostG

It should be obvious to close the QR, but there are riders out there who believe you shouldn't tighten it too much. Why? I don't have a clue. Last year I was riding with two friends: nothing special, just a relaxed Sunday morning spin. Coming out of a corner, I heard the last one going down. Immediately I knew it was serious and we had to call an ambulance. Afterwards I inspected his bike and saw that has backwheel had come out of the dropouts when he came out of the saddle to get in the wheel.
When I mentioned this to him afterwards, he told me that he understood that the QR wasn't supposed to be be closed firmly.... Tis accident made him see this differently. Hard lesson!

patrickf

I spotted someone riding around with the rear QR half open recently. Thought I'd be nice and tell him. He came back to tell me that it was tight so it was ok

BrandonA

Veronese68 wrote:

It is a bit of a worry that people ride around with their QR's open. Unfortunately there is a guy at work that does this on his BSO. He uses the QR like an old style wing nut and just winds it up. I occasionally put it right without telling him if I notice. If I tell him he undoes it anyway. You just can't tell some people.

I can (almost) understand someone not understanding how a QR works but to keep putting it into the incorrect and dangerous position after they have been told the correct way of using it amazes me.

JayKosta

As I understand it, the 'problem' that resulted in the recall is NOT that someone can leave the lever open!
It's that if the bike is ridden with the lever open, SOMETIMES the lever can swing around and jam into the wheel causing the wheel to immediately stop.

Perhaps the 'lawyer tabs' would prevent the wheel from completely falling off the bike, but the sudden stopping of a wheel can result in a more serious accident.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

Bozman

They'll probably ban QR skewers over there now, just be grateful for that large expanse of water between us.

Anonymous

There was a guy on here once that asked why his quick release had 'stopped working'. Said he kept opening and closing it but no joy.
He did not understand that you needed to adjust the tension to be just right for the cam to work.
Not sure how he got the wheel out of the dropouts if it was ever tight enough, so guessing it never was!

You can kind of see why he thought it was simply an open or closed lever if he had never been shown/told how to do it or bother to read the instructions.
Once you think you know how something works your brain stops questioning whether you are doing it correctly.

Its a cam. It needs to be fully closed and it needs to be tight enough not to open itself.
Cannot believe people ride around with them partially open. I will keep my eye out for that now lol.

veronese68

JayKosta wrote:

As I understand it, the 'problem' that resulted in the recall is NOT that someone can leave the lever open!
It's that if the bike is ridden with the lever open, SOMETIMES the lever can swing around and jam into the wheel causing the wheel to immediately stop.

Perhaps the 'lawyer tabs' would prevent the wheel from completely falling off the bike, but the sudden stopping of a wheel can result in a more serious accident.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

Yes, that's exactly it. If used properly it would never be a problem, that's the rub.

andy_wrx

Veronese68 wrote:

JayKosta wrote:

As I understand it, the 'problem' that resulted in the recall is NOT that someone can leave the lever open!
It's that if the bike is ridden with the lever open, SOMETIMES the lever can swing around and jam into the wheel causing the wheel to immediately stop.

Perhaps the 'lawyer tabs' would prevent the wheel from completely falling off the bike, but the sudden stopping of a wheel can result in a more serious accident.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

Yes, that's exactly it. If used properly it would never be a problem, that's the rub.

Err, why did the OP post the USA Today video ? Have half the posters on here not watched it ?

The Q/R flops open, the lever jams into the brake disc (or rotor as they call them in USA). which then causes a front-wheel lock-up and endo.

Trek are replacing the Q/R's with ones which won't open more than 180degrees, so can't jam in the brake disc

Nothing about them coming open and the wheel falling-out : the new Q/R's won't affect that !

It won't affect 99.9% of us anyway - this is Road General and it's only MTB'ers with disc brakes

awavey

andy_wrx wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

JayKosta wrote:

As I understand it, the 'problem' that resulted in the recall is NOT that someone can leave the lever open!
It's that if the bike is ridden with the lever open, SOMETIMES the lever can swing around and jam into the wheel causing the wheel to immediately stop.

Perhaps the 'lawyer tabs' would prevent the wheel from completely falling off the bike, but the sudden stopping of a wheel can result in a more serious accident.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

Yes, that's exactly it. If used properly it would never be a problem, that's the rub.

Err, why did the OP post the USA Today video ? Have half the posters on here not watched it ?

The Q/R flops open, the lever jams into the brake disc (or rotor as they call them in USA). which then causes a front-wheel lock-up and endo.

Trek are replacing the Q/R's with ones which won't open more than 180degrees, so can't jam in the brake disc

Nothing about them coming open and the wheel falling-out : the new Q/R's won't affect that !

It won't affect 99.9% of us anyway - this is Road General and it's only MTB'ers with disc brakes

I did go and double check my Q/Rs didnt open more than 180 degrees just in case though