OldTryGuy

Originally Posted by Gresp15C View Post
Okay, QR levers, fine. But what we really need to discuss is which way the Brilando clips are supposed to point...


Former Schwinn Dealer and position of lever and clips in photo are "As per Schwinn instructions."

Gresp15C

Brilando invented the clips. At the time, bike makers were working on a variety of "secondary retention" mechanisms for both QR and nutted axles. This was in response to known cases of front wheel detachment failure, roughly a dozen per year. Now the Schwinn business enters the story. Schwinn offered to license the patent, but under prohibitive terms, so the industry found a different design: Lawyer lips.

When secondary retention was introduced, front wheel detachment failures vanished practically overnight.

This puts me in a minority among cyclists: I think secondary retention is probably a good idea. But like many safety features on bikes, the benefit can't be proven or disproven by hard data, because crashes are so rare. And even if caused by user error, most engineers won't let a user kill themselves if there's a simple remedy.

These clips were on the bike when I got it for $15, and I hadn't seen them since my childhood. So I transferred them to this wheel. In addition to providing secondary retention, they're a nice historical accent and conversation starter.

70sSanO

I’m posted this for fear that this thread will not hit the mandatory minimum page count.

That recall had to do with QR levers that were not installed correctly. When installed too loose to begin with, just threading it tight with the skewer open, and while in the open position the lever could rotate and jam into the rotor.

It was a classic case of one safety feature, lawyer lips, preventing the wheel from falling out when loose so that the skewer could jam into the rotor. While no one wants to see anyone get hurt and having a wheel come loose while riding would cause injury, having it fall out before you ride prevents injury.

Now there was a Shimano QR skewer recall in the early 2000’s due to a manufacturing issue.

John

wolfchild

Glad I am using nutted axels, no need to worry or debate about what position they should be in.

Gresp15C

Should the nuts be tightened with a flat facing forward, or one of the points?

sovende

Interesting back story! I’m pretty sure it would have been some “Head Office bean counter” that suggested the prohibitive terms in the patent license. Too bad, Schwinn would have scored some industry wide “safety credibility” had the patent license been more reasonable and the Schwinn Secondary Retention System “SSRS” would have become a standard on bikes sold in the USA. (Maybe good maybe bad .)
While I mentioned previously that it would be unlikely for me to reinstall any secondary retention device, I will say that the Brilando style retention is fairly non obtrusive and I see no reason to remove any of them from any of my Schwinn bikes. I won’t say that it’s because I want to maintain the “OEM configuration” since I routinely remove the “secondary brake levers” from any bike that I intend to keep .

Gresp15C

The clips are actually quite easy to use, but require a slightly different lock nut design with a shoulder machined into it. Once the wheel is in there, you just rotate the clips and they snap into place.

Yeah, those extension brake levers. Some things are worth keeping, others not so much.

wolfchild

We need a thread on lawyer lips to complement this thread.

Chuck M 

It has hit 3 pages already without serious arguments. It could make it to 9 pages at this rate.

SurferRosa

Here's how I place my skewer levers on all my bikes. Yes, I catch much grief and hand wringing from certain folks.




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phtomita

I have mine mine facing behind and up, like the front one from pick above - if a tree branch or something happen to hit around the QR somehow, there is less chances to get caught by the QR,

cyccommute 

The lever should be tight enough that no random tree branch, vine, or bit of string should be able to pull the lever open. Think of how hard it is to open it with your hand and then think about how hard it would be for some random bit of road or trail debris to open that lever. All of the horror stories about quick release levers opening (and the lawyer lips that we are saddled with) are due to operator error, not because of some problem with the mechanism.

indyfabz

A walk down memory lane.

I was leading a group of people on a club ride from New Hope, PA to Brooklyn, NY. We made a quick stop around mile 28. There was a bike rack outside the store. One rider put his bike in front wheel first. When it's time to leave, he grabs the stem, lifts up the front of his bike and turns it around. As he does, the front wheel drops out of the fork. The QR was wide open. We could only conclude that he forgot to close it (or at least close it adequately) when he took his bike out of the car at the start of the ride.

79pmooney

Not true. Whether the flats are vertical at the sides or horizontal at the top make a huge difference. And being askew and neither? Just plain wrong!! If you don't pay close attention to this key detail ,you could end up like me.

Ben (who's never paid attention)

79pmooney

If you ride with others, that rear facing QR lever can come in contact witha nother's front wheel. Won't be pretty for them and they might open it, jamming your rear wheel. (See my post at the bottom of the first page.)

The modern curved levers closed into the space between chainstay and seatstay are pretty out of the way and very unlikely to ever get caught by the branch that made its way past your left foot. If it does and does open the lever, it's a quick skidding stop but the odds of anyone being behind you when it happens is remote. When a front wheel opens that lever, the odds of a rider immediately behind you are 100%. (I don't see any of this changing on recumbents other than the destroyed front wheels and skidding stops consequences are a little different and probably less exciting.)

cxwrench

I watched this happen once from a team car in a big road race. It was definitely not pretty, the rider who's front wheel contacted the lever went down incredibly hard and was most definitely concussed. She was then run over by a couple more riders. The rider who's lever got flicked open also went down but not as hard and didn't get run over.

Gresp15C

That's what happens when you get engineers involved. Everybody suspected that front wheel detachment was caused by user error. It was happening on both QR and nutted wheels. But they couldn't prove root cause, and in any event it's common practice for engineers to design around a failure mode, even if it's caused by user error. Today, front wheel detachment is so rare that any hope of proving what most of us consider to be obvious has vanished.

My only experience with QR failure was on a bike with disc brakes after hard braking. The lawyer lips held the wheel on. I can't prove that the QR was simply under-tightened. But I also didn't sign up for the death penalty. I replaced the cheap external cam skewer with a high quality internal cam skewer with better serrations, and the problem has gone away.

wolfchild

Who in their right mind would even ride so close that their wheel would touch other cyclists quick release ???..

cxwrench

Sounds like you don't have much group and/or race experience.

cyccommute 

I’m not sure who else besides engineers are qualified to figure out how to solve problems. I’m not sure that poets or accountants are going to know how to make a quick release work properly. i really don’t think nutted wheels have been had much of a history of ejection. I also don’t think wheel ejections were that much of a problem before the advent of hub mounted disc rotors. It happened but mostly could be attributed to user error.

The external cam skewers aren’t “cheap” in my experience. Ineffective, yes, but they are usually more expensive than internal cam skewers. And the superiority of the internal cam isn’t due to the serrations but due to the superior clamping force. Sheldon Brown has a pretty good description of why the internal cam is better. I experienced this myself with one of my daughter’s bikes that has horizontal dropouts and used an external cam lever. She couldn’t get the skewer tight enough to keep the wheel centered. We changed to an internal cam and the problem went away.

People think that the CPSC mandates lawyer lips. They don’t. Lawyer lips are probably a good idea if hub mounted discs are used with quick release but with rim brakes, they aren’t necessarily needed...if the skewer is properly tightened.

Sy Reene

Sheldon's take basically boils down to this: "The result is that the exposed-cam type provides very much less clamping force for a given amount of hand force on the lever."

So if you're weak, get an external cam skewer. Maybe in 10-20 years, I'll find I need to move to an internal cam for peace of mind.

Gresp15C

Indeed, I think we're agreeing here. I no longer have the link, but the numbers were something like a dozen or so front wheel detachment crashes per year, from both nutted and QR wheels. This was from data collected by the bike makers on warranty claims and lawsuits, before the introduction of secondary retention. With such a tiny amount of data, there was no way that they could conclusively prove that user error was the root cause, though we all have our suspicions.

Pop N Wood

Well that doesn't apply to me, at least not as close as you seem to.

Of all the things to worry about in a pack of riders seems like popping a QR would be down on the list.

I don't worry about them catching on anything while riding. Actually I don't really worry about them at all. But I have had them catch on things like bike racks and random things in the garage, you know, maneuvering the bike through tight spaces.

I've replaced the QR on a couple of bikes with Allen key skewers. On bikes with lawyer lips I find the Allen key ones quicker to install, no more trial and error to see if I got the QR tension right. I have a multitool in each patch kit so no worries there.

Man, the good riding weather must have mellowed people out. No flame wars yet.

wolfchild

I have no idea what you're talking about...I've been using nutted axles on all of my bikes for a very log time and never had a single problem with any of them coming loose.

wolfchild

I have no desire to participate in any cycling events which require riding so close to each other, that the riders wheels start touching other riders wheels