Originally Posted by
Kontact
I'm sorry; I have not had that experience. Nor do I understand how a wheel can be put in a frame in such a way that it is rideable, yet cassette and RD are working in different planes or are offset.
Idiocy knows no bounds. At a bike shop I used to manage, a customer brought a recently repaired bike back, saying that the bike still wasn't working right. Turned out our non-stop-talker, easily distracted teenage mechanic (a) had screwed the rear skewer in far enough that it closed with only one end of the axle in the dropout and (b) had left the chain hanging below the cassette.
I hesitate to tell this story, but:
The first time I set up one of my bikes on my brand new smart trainer, I was a bit hasty and didn't get the 130/135-mm axle spacer in the right place and, consequently, didn't have the left end of the axle seated fully in the dropout. Climbed on the bike---crack. The right (carbon) seat stay now has a line running across it at the point where it narrows to meet the dropout. (The bike is OK for use on the trainer but is now useless on the road---with even minimal pedaling force, the rear tire rubs the chain stays and the chain jumps wildly from sprocket to sprocket.)
Not a rear wheel, but:
I was admiring a cute girl riding along at the start of a local bike club ride when I noticed that her boyfriend had tightened the front wheel skewer with one end of the axle in the dropout and one out. Stopped her, fixed it. "I thought the brake was maybe rubbing a little," she said. (Score one for the male gaze.)
[Edit: I agree that a rear wheel with one end of the axle in and the other out of the dropouts is unlikely to be able to be pedaled very far. With a non-indexed gearing setup, it might be possible, though.]