Steel Charlie

I'd have to rate that as a first definition factoid. Please tell me the correct number of links for the chain on my '81 Colnago and just where exactly to set the adjustment screws to take full advantage of that chain length. I expect that critically missing info is what has been holding me back for several decades now. OMG!! I could have been Famous! I could have been Somebody! Now this feels like the right time for me to start cutting myself for being so stoopid

Road Fan

Is a "first definition factoid" better than a run of the mill factoid? The fact you call it a factoid suggests you think it's false and hence perhaps suggesting that I am lying. I honestly don't care about that. But if you have to cut yourself, to each his own. If you're going to give me responses like that, I don't care.

But do you have an alternative explanation for why those screws are in there? What do you think would happen if they are not there?

But really, when I'm done setting a wheel position that helps me set up your friction shifting just right, (for some reason my Masi is finicky this way) I do not want it messed with. I tend to spend a lot of time on fine tuning. Maybe I'm the stupid one, but I get my bikes working well. If you don't have the need, so what, YMMV. And I truly like to have those little wheel stops making my wheel installations consistent.

Steel Charlie

Whew!!! Really gets tiring!!

Joe Bikerider

I’m still wondering why “vertical” drop outs are so obviously not vertical. At least from that picture which looks a little more upright from horizontal but certainly not vertical.

TH1813254617

Go for the head and don't let it bite you!

Chombi1 

The 80's French Simplex dropout, do not use those silly little springs,...........ptouie!
They use miniature Delrin hockey pucks with holes through them,......... of course!!

ShannonM

For that matter, "horizontal" dropouts aren't horizontal... they slope upwards to the rear. Of course, there's actually a reason for that. It's so that you don't have to adjust the brake pads if you clamp the wheel in a different spot. For verticals, I imagine that in order for them to be perfectly vertical on every frame, you'd need a different dropout for every size and geometry variation, since the seatstays and chainstays hit the dropout at different angles depending on the specifics of the frame.

--Shannon

--Shannon

Bad Lag

57 posts and counting on whether the spring goes inside or out....

For you perusing pleasure, only on C&V Forum.

ShannonM

And it was about 50 or 60 posts later, that dropout springs... You remember dropout springs? This is a thread about dropout springs.

You can get anything you want, at Classic and Vintage Bikes... (except an answer)

--Shannon

conspiratemus1

Well, at least another generation of cyclists has been disabused of the notion that they were put there to convert a bike from “racing” (short wheelbase) to “touring” (long wheelbase) with a minimum of fuss, which was what I was told by fellow greenhorns, who didn’t race either but loved to BS about stuff.
My cycling “crowd” back then was mostly guys who hadn’t been athletic in school, so didn’t compete on bikes as adults, thus missing out on the deep knowledge of equipment and techniques that the racing fraternity got. The racing clubs did allow “civilians” to join their group rides back then just by showing up, so if you were willing to suffer physically and take not-so-gentle direction you could learn a lot. But I don’t recall dropout screws being on the curriculum.

As to the answer about where the springs belong, bikes on display in bike shops always had them inside the dropouts. So that’s one answer. Elaborating, the adjusters need the springs to stay put. Springless, with the wheel clamped in place, the screw is free to move backward, spoiling the adjustment for when you need to remove the wheel. If it is inside the dropout, it will still survive to do its job if the part sticking out back loses the knurled nut or breaks off altogether, as frequently happened when bikes were crammed into Volkswagens. So there should be no controversy about where the springs belong when you combine history with analysis of consequences of failure— which orientation causes the lesser impairment and the lesser need to buy a new part immediately? If you were happy with where the wheel was positioned, you would never need to replace a broken-off adjuster screw, provided it still had its spring. You even still had some adjustment, requiring a narrow screwdriver with the wheel out.

(Granted, as one poster said, if you needed the wheel almost all the way back, there wouldn’t be room for the thickness of the fully compressed spring and the screw head, so then yes the spring would have to go outside behind the dropout.)

There are alternatives to springs, as pcb showed us. His setup would hold adjustment if the screw broke off flush with the jam nut.

The thread wandered away when it tried to figure out if the adjusters actually did what they were claimed (by me and others) to do: assist with B-pivot tension.

SurferRosa

One less word: yuck.

Road Fan

Take a nap.

JohnDThompson 

I put a stainless washer on the outside so the paint wouldn't get marred by the QR:

Road Fan

Well, any bike part has the uses that people put them to. For example, I doubt handlebars were actually intended for friends without a bike to ride on the handlebar of another person's bike. Nor the top tube, rear fender, or rear luggage rack. If one wants to use them to make the bike feel more like a tourer, fine. Aside from inconvenience when re-installing a wheel, they are not vitally needed by the "civilian" rider. I'm not a racer and never have been, though I've enjoyed riding fast when I could. But I always appreciate having to do less work when I install a rear wheel. I tried adjusting how my bike handled by playing with the wheel position, and I did not see any differences, it did not make my Trek 610 into a Trek 720, but if someone else likes them for that reason, it's not for me to judge. But I find it hard to believe that the builders of racing frames decades ago in the days when this solution was conceived, did it so that their racing customers would adjust the wheel back a cm to go out for a calm Sunday ride with the wife or girlfriend or to load up their bikes with a light tent and sleeping bag to spend a quiet night alone in the woods. To get modern, yes, it is a use case but I doubt it was the original intended use case.

As far as doing what we now know a B-pivot does, I believe that explanation more than I believe the tourer-conversion story. Adjusting free length was important, and that's a decent explanation for what I raised, that the shifting might go off-kilter in the middle of a race, even though a B-screw was not a thing back then. On my Masi I still sometimes struggle to get it (with NR gearing) to handle a 26 tooth cogset gracefully across all the gearing positions.

As for the spring location, I think we're in agreement. If you need to have a screw which needs to have a spring, it's better to have it inside the slot than sticking out the back.

Conspiratemus1, I hope you are not dissatisfied!

Road Fan

And as far as the aimless discussion drift, C&V here is not exceptional.

merziac

It also keeps those stamped looking dropouts from looking like, well stamped looking dropouts.

conspiratemus1

Nailed it. Satisfyingly.
(I could have said Screwed it, but that would have given the totally unintended impression.)