Safe Skewers

[ourclarioncall]

After researching and asking questions I’m getting more of an appreciation/liking for quick release

I’m hearing a lot  that locking skewers like pitlock etc are prone to failure or are working themselves loose. And there is also warnings not to overtighten them . So I don’t know . I’m not sure I want something that’s tricky to fine tune and get it just right

Saying that , I’m finding I have a similar issue with the quick release on my bike which I think would be a half decent product being shimano . It seems like you there a very small window you have to get it in to close it so it’s not overly tight or overly loose .

Can these quick release wear over time and create problems like this ?

Having a solid axle on both wheels won’t be an option I don’t think if I go with the crazy overkill 48h rims 😄

[PH]

I had an issue with a Pitlock skewer, back in the day when I had Marathon Plus on the Raven for commuting and the front wheel hadn't been off for months possibly over a year.  When it did puncture, typically on a cold wet night, in the middle of nowhere, the nut side had corroded, it undid half a turn then spun, I could neither undo it further or tighten it back up. I fixed the puncture without removing the wheel, wrestled the  Marathon + back on then carefully rode home with a lose front wheel. The lesson learned wasn't about skewers, more about not leaving all weather threaded parts untouched for a long time if you rely on them coming undone when needed.
Anyway - the Trans X type I posted earlier (Which are available in security key or allen key versions) have nothing to go wrong.  They work like a QR without the complication of the QR (Not that that isn't reliable) In reality the security version isn't that secure, it might deter someone from casually walking off with your wheel, or messing with the skewer for a "laugh" but it isn't really going to deter someone seriously intent on stealing the wheel. 

[mickeg]

After researching and asking questions I’m getting more of an appreciation/liking for quick release

I’m hearing a lot  that locking skewers like pitlock etc are prone to failure or are working themselves loose. And there is also warnings not to overtighten them . So I don’t know . I’m not sure I want something that’s tricky to fine tune and get it just right

Saying that , I’m finding I have a similar issue with the quick release on my bike which I think would be a half decent product being shimano . It seems like you there a very small window you have to get it in to close it so it’s not overly tight or overly loose .

Can these quick release wear over time and create problems like this ?

Having a solid axle on both wheels won’t be an option I don’t think if I go with the crazy overkill 48h rims 😄

I have never used a Pitlock, I do not want any chance of losing a special key for it.  That is why I use the standard bolt on ones, like the Halo that I cited earlier.  It is an M5 bolt.  Just like a water bottle cage bolt, but longer.  Tighten it to about the same torque you use for other M5 bolts.  If you are worried about the threaded end corroding, smear some grease on it.  Sometimes there are dissimilar metals involved, so some grease on the threads is a good idea.

Standard quick release, if it feels too easy to push the lever to lock the wheel on, undo it and give the nut an eighth to a quarter turn and try it again, or if too tight, you get the idea.  The fine tuning takes about one quarter of the time it took me to type this paragraph.

Wear over time and create problems, if something is starting to go wrong over time, you will have some warning that something is going wrong unless it is corrosion like Ph had. 

[mickeg]

When I said that a skewer bolt and water bottle cage bolt are both an M5, they are, but one takes a different wrench than the other.

[John Saxby]

From your earlier post, George:

Otherwise, I am not familiar with people having problems with quick release.

Here's my example:

I switched from QR fore and aft on my Raven in 2015.  This is what happened:  I was in hilly country testing my switch from a 38T to 36T front ring.  I stopped at the bottom of a hill, after the descent, because I'd heard a rattle from the rear of the bike. There was indeed a rattle, a clunky one: the rear wheel was loose, because the QR had worked loose.  Dunno how -- I knew the cam mechanism, and had tightened it to my measure, pushing the heel of my hand against the lever, with my fingers 'round the seat stay. (This was well before arthritis in my thumbs, and I had a strong grip.)

I re-tightened the QR, returned home, and immediately ordered Halowheel skewers for all my bikes, save for my city bike.  This has an Australian halo-like skewer with a pentagonal keyed skewer with one irregular (by design) flat.

No problems with loose wheels on any of the bikes in the seven years since.

[ourclarioncall]

Interesting.

I’m still undecided on the direction to go regarding skewers

But every time I go down a hill at speed I just have this nagging anxiety 😄

If my forks had those lawyers lugs things I think I’d feel a bit more comfortable but possibly all Thorns forks are flat  🤔 not sure , it’s just what it looks like In images I’ve looked at

[ourclarioncall]

I had an issue with a Pitlock skewer, back in the day when I had Marathon Plus on the Raven for commuting and the front wheel hadn't been off for months possibly over a year.  When it did puncture, typically on a cold wet night, in the middle of nowhere, the nut side had corroded, it undid half a turn then spun, I could neither undo it further or tighten it back up. I fixed the puncture without removing the wheel, wrestled the  Marathon + back on then carefully rode home with a lose front wheel. The lesson learned wasn't about skewers, more about not leaving all weather threaded parts untouched for a long time if you rely on them coming undone when needed.
Anyway - the Trans X type I posted earlier (Which are available in security key or allen key versions) have nothing to go wrong.  They work like a QR without the complication of the QR (Not that that isn't reliable) In reality the security version isn't that secure, it might deter someone from casually walking off with your wheel, or messing with the skewer for a "laugh" but it isn't really going to deter someone seriously intent on stealing the wheel.

What did you think of the quality of the pit locks ? I think all the parts are steel? Maybe stainless? I forget now

Would you ever use them again or is there a bit of a mental block because of what happened with them

[ourclarioncall]

After researching and asking questions I’m getting more of an appreciation/liking for quick release

I’m hearing a lot  that locking skewers like pitlock etc are prone to failure or are working themselves loose. And there is also warnings not to overtighten them . So I don’t know . I’m not sure I want something that’s tricky to fine tune and get it just right

Saying that , I’m finding I have a similar issue with the quick release on my bike which I think would be a half decent product being shimano . It seems like you there a very small window you have to get it in to close it so it’s not overly tight or overly loose .

Can these quick release wear over time and create problems like this ?

Having a solid axle on both wheels won’t be an option I don’t think if I go with the crazy overkill 48h rims 😄

I have never used a Pitlock, I do not want any chance of losing a special key for it.  That is why I use the standard bolt on ones, like the Halo that I cited earlier.  It is an M5 bolt.  Just like a water bottle cage bolt, but longer.  Tighten it to about the same torque you use for other M5 bolts.  If you are worried about the threaded end corroding, smear some grease on it.  Sometimes there are dissimilar metals involved, so some grease on the threads is a good idea.

Standard quick release, if it feels too easy to push the lever to lock the wheel on, undo it and give the nut an eighth to a quarter turn and try it again, or if too tight, you get the idea.  The fine tuning takes about one quarter of the time it took me to type this paragraph.

Wear over time and create problems, if something is starting to go wrong over time, you will have some warning that something is going wrong unless it is corrosion like Ph had.

Halo make some interesting stuff

I just noticed they have a really strong wide rim. Comparable to the Andra 40 or velocity cliff hanger . It’s called the SAS and it’s about 30mm internal and 36mm external width

[PH]

Would you ever use them again or is there a bit of a mental block because of what happened with them

If I felt the need for that level of wheel security I'd probably use them again.  Since then I've had a well locked bike vandalised to scrap so I've somewhat changed my opinion on matters of security.
As skewers, the Pitlocks are fine, but no better than the Trans-X ones I posted earlier, the same skewers can be found with different branding. They sound similar, might even the same, as the Halo ones.

[PH]

Halo make some interesting stuff

I just noticed they have a really strong wide rim. Comparable to the Andra 40 or velocity cliff hanger . It’s called the SAS and it’s about 30mm internal and 36mm external width

I did wonder it the Halowheels that John mentioned was the same Halo as in the UK.  They do make some good stuff, I have a pair of the White Line Classic rims on my Alfine Mercury.

[Prince of Darkness]

Interesting.

I’m still undecided on the direction to go regarding skewers

But every time I go down a hill at speed I just have this nagging anxiety 😄

If my forks had those lawyers lugs things I think I’d feel a bit more comfortable but possibly all Thorns forks are flat  🤔 not sure , it’s just what it looks like In images I’ve looked at

I think those lawyer lugs are a waste of time, they just make it more difficult to remove and refit the wheel. After you release the cam, you then have to loosen the tension nut at the other end to get the wheel off. When you put the wheel back on you have to fiddle around getting the tension right again. In the event of the QR mechanism failing whilst you are riding, the wheel might not fall off, but it will still be loose and cause you to crash!. In over 25 years, I have never had a QR mechanism fail whilst riding, only when removing the wheel (once).

[mickeg]

From your earlier post, George:

Otherwise, I am not familiar with people having problems with quick release.

Here's my example:

I switched from QR fore and aft on my Raven in 2015.  This is what happened:  I was in hilly country testing my switch from a 38T to 36T front ring.  I stopped at the bottom of a hill, after the descent, because I'd heard a rattle from the rear of the bike. There was indeed a rattle, a clunky one: the rear wheel was loose, because the QR had worked loose.  Dunno how -- I knew the cam mechanism, and had tightened it to my measure, pushing the heel of my hand against the lever, with my fingers 'round the seat stay. (This was well before arthritis in my thumbs, and I had a strong grip.)

I re-tightened the QR, returned home, and immediately ordered Halowheel skewers for all my bikes, save for my city bike.  This has an Australian halo-like skewer with a pentagonal keyed skewer with one irregular (by design) flat.

No problems with loose wheels on any of the bikes in the seven years since.

You are the first one that I have heard this happen to, but in part when I say that I do not have a lot of trust in some of the people that say something like that happened when the rest of their story has inconsistencies. 

I trust that when you say you closed your quick release properly, that it actually was closed properly.

I have heard of people being anti-social and opening quick releases on bikes in bike racks, for example at a school, then the bike owner gets on the bike, when they hit a bump hard enough to jolt the bike the wheel can fall out. 

I suspect that was part of the reason that most new bikes these days (but not my Thorns) include an extra protrusion on the fork so that the front wheel can't completely drop out unless the release is opened much farther.

I filed those protrusions off my folding bike fork, as it was a major hassle to deal with when I had to remove the wheel to fold it.  But I left them on my other bikes that have them.

[mickeg]

In five more years we can celebrate the 100th anniversary of the invention of the quick release.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_release_skewer

When you consider how many people have raced with them, especially with the older style horizontal dropouts, if they were that much of a hazard we should have heard of multiple failures over the years.

***

A quick side note here, if you pack up your bike and put it in a box to go on an airplane somewhere, remove the front wheel skewer.  When I was in Iceland, I met two Italians that had just arrived, they both had bent skewers and it was on a Sunday, they could not find any replacement skewers.

I was packing up to go home, if it was one person I would have given him mine, but it was two people so then needed two front ones.

***

But now that most new manufacturers are going to thru axle, quick releases will slowly disappear over the decades.

...
I think those lawyer lugs are a waste of time, they just make it more difficult to remove and refit the wheel. After you release the cam, you then have to loosen the tension nut at the other end to get the wheel off. When you put the wheel back on you have to fiddle around getting the tension right again. In the event of the QR mechanism failing whilst you are riding, the wheel might not fall off, but it will still be loose and cause you to crash!. In over 25 years, I have never had a QR mechanism fail whilst riding, only when removing the wheel (once).

On my bikes that have them, I loosen the nut exactly four turns, then it is easier to install later, as four turns might not get me to the exact point I want but I am really close to it and only takes a few more seconds to fine tune it.