Originally Posted by
79pmooney
I am another who liked and had good results with cheap Cycle Pro QRs.
Usually, when we lock up rear wheels, we don't go over the bars and the bike stays upright. Wheel stays trapped in the stays. (Now that's kind of a fun sentence.) The OP tried a different approach (flipping the bike up and over himself) and came out with a different outcome.
"I've popped open all-steel Shimano skewers ..." Funny, I find them to be some of the best I've ever used. And I'm a generally anti-Shimano guy.
I've had some older Shimano branded Skewers that didn't seem to lock over center very well if set too tight, I could see them popping open on a hard bump or the tap of your heel.
Cycle Pro skewers I believe were the same as Sunshine skewers. OEM Raleigh branded skewers also looked to be about the same.
I ran a lot of Atom and Maillard branded skewers back in the day, most came on Normandy hubs.
The skewers that always worried me are those from the 90's, the aluminum handle things from Shimano found on so many bikes. They don't have the same holding power that the vintage side handle versions seemed to have.
Most of the road bikes I've owned had back wheels that fit so tight I had to deflate the tire to get the wheel in the frame. So falling out of the dropouts wasn't likely.
What I would normally expect when a skewer lets go of the wheel or 'slips under power' would be for the freewheel side to come forward cocking the wheel on an angle in the chain stays. Effectively turning the wheel to the left. Rider weight alone would be contributing a reverse force, pushing the loose wheel back up into the dropouts making it even harder for it to separate from the bike.
What happened to the chain when the wheel came out? I would think that the chain would have also caught on the cogs, skewer, or axle hanging onto the wheel.
Looking at the pic above, its hard to tell but it don't look like the axle is very far into the dropout in that pic, maybe a close up pic of the rear axle area or back wheel on both sides would show more.