Stephen Barner wrote:
>
> I think Steven's point is that the clearance between the tire and chainstays
> is usually much less than at the seatstays. Horizontal dropouts allow one
> to cock the wheel slightly, which for many wheel/frame combinations will
> allow the tire to just miss the chainstays. Flip the QR on the rear brake
> and you can often get home without further ado (or, if it's a Varsity, you
> just continue riding it that way until something alse happens). With
> vertical dropouts you can only cock the wheel vertically, which is not
> usually where the problem needs to be addressed.
Not to put too fine a point on all this Steve, but in my experience, my highly tensioned 32 hole and 28 hole wheels went _way_ out of true when I broke a spoke, and cocking a wheel in a dropout was not going to clear the chainstays. And it only took a minute to adjust the spoke tension since I was already stopped to do something about the broken spoke that was whipping around the stays as I rode.
Chuck Schmidt South Pasadena, CA
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