ChicagoWinter98

12

Morelock

"fully" hand tight rear and metal front dropouts... a little less on carbon front forks.

jsk

I must be misunderstanding either the original question or your answer? Surely you're not saying you only tighten the rear wheel bolts by hand, without any tool?

ChicagoWinter98

12

Morelock

Sorry, maybe different wording for other places (?) Hand tight = by feel - no torque wrench.
Not literally by hand, using a wrench

southernfox

Torque wrench when I'm not being lazy. By experience/feel when I am.

Divebrian

Depends upon efforts being done, for training....standing starts, very tight. Doing laps with moderate pace....snugged, not very tight. Race day, tighter than training days. The rear wheel can come off once a day or many times, no need to tighten more than the necessary.

Baby Puke

This is actually not a terribly easy question to answer. Being a former professional motorcycle mechanic, I can attest that historically much damage has ben done by over tightening stuff, and while less common, under-tightening stuff can lead to catastrophic failure and injury. With track bikes, over-tightening leads to short track end life, so "just tight enough" is what you want. What does that mean? Hard to say. I've personally never used a torque wrench to tighten wheel nuts, and I've never seen this done by any of my friends or competitors, but it wouldn't hurt if you don't have the experience or "feel" to do it free-hand. I've come to understand that many, many people out there lack the skill of getting something tight enough whilst not going overboard into ****ing it up.

southernfox

Oh, is this about WHEEL bolts?

Front: firm but not cranking on anything.

Back: pretty much just shy of 'as tight as possible because I put out a lot of torque' and any lighter is not enough. I mean, I'm not leaning into it or anything, but I am holding the frame to get a little extra purchase. There's usually a 'creak' that indicates right amount.

I've never used a torque wrench for wheels.

topflightpro

Dolan claims that the DF4 track ends were spreading because people were over-tightening their rear wheel bolts. I don't recall the exact explanation - it kind of made sense when I read it but also kind of didn't. Regardless, they said to use the tension bolts to assure to the wheel isn't pulled forward and to not over tighten the rear bolts.

(This is discussed in one of the other threads.)

700wheel

At my local track I've noticed that riders who pull over a rear wheel at the start line often have one the following features:
1. A plain hex lock nut rather than a serrated lock nut (wheels with the former need to be tightened more than the latter).
2. An Allen key headed screw or bolt.

sarals 

I use the tensioner bolts in the track ends (on the back, of course) to do two things. First, the get the chain tension right and the wheel centered. And then as a "safety" in case the axle bolts aren't quite tight enough. I don't crank those tensioner (or adjusters, that's what they are on motorcycles) bolts tightly against the axle, just snug. They don't hold the axle in position, the axle bolts do. My 2.5 cents!

Baby Puke

Seconded on the chain tensioners. If you have them, use them, they work.

rensho3

I look at them the same way I consider using straps on clip-in pedals; they are there is you ever need them. When I was way younger, I pulled the wheel of my 3Rensho, which did not have chain tensioners. I also pulled out of my pedals. I could not do much about the rear wheel, because I did not know where to get tensioners, 'cause it took me a while to discover Google. However, I did put straps on, and they kept me in my pedals last year during team sprint at Natz, I unclipped my right foot, but stayed in the strap and just clipped back in. BTW, we won, which would not have happened if I came all the way out.

I have not upgraded my Fuji elite since I bought it in 2011 (maybe 2012, I forget) because it has built in tension screws and the new Fuji elite does not. A couple of years ago I got distracted by someone just when I was tightening my rear axel nuts, and only snugged them up a little so I could check chain tension. I went out and did a a couple of standing starts and did not realize the mistake until I went to change gears. What could have been very painful was not because of the tensioners. I echo Baby Puke, if you got 'em, use 'em..