A likely reason for wing nuts hanging on is that solid axles are less likely to bend. Campagnolo (and others) never really solved this problem with the Nuevo Record hubs and all the good shops stocked rear axles by the handful.
Many people associate wing nuts with the cheap ones from the bike boom era and don't know how well they can work if they are well made. The front wheel is almost as easy and fast as a QR and it is much easier to adjust chain tension (if required) one wing nut at a time on the rear wheel.
I have not been posting to the list because of a move to the New Haven CT area. The move should be complete by the end of August. All my bikes are packed and the only one I have is a lovely Dave Tesch. Took a nice ride up an over Franconia Notch, NH today. I guess the Tesch will go to the Lars Anderson show because that's all I've got!
Joe Bender-Zanoni
Soon to be in Whitneyville, CT
> At 9:35 AM -0400 7/29/07, Stronglight49@aol.com wrote:
\r?\n> >As a bicycle racer Tulio Campagnolo had a terrible experience
\r?\n> fighting with
\r?\n> >his wheel wing nuts in freezing temperatures. By 1930, he had
\r?\n> perfected his
\r?\n> >patented quick release skewer system - which has remained
\r?\n> essentially
\r?\n> >unchanged ever since. One would think everyone would want to
\r?\n> adopt
\r?\n> >that newest
\r?\n> >technology. So, why did we still see wing nuts on even top
\r?\n> level
\r?\n> >racing bikes
\r?\n> >for many more years?
\r?\n>
\r?\n> One issue with quick releases were neutral wheel changes. On the
\r?\n> early quick releases, adjustments for different dropout widths
\r?\n> required tools to undo the "Frankenstein" nuts on the quick
\r?\n> release
\r?\n> nut.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> In the Bicycle Quarterly article "Changing Trends - Making Sense
\r?\n> of
\r?\n> Racing Bicycles from the Past" (Vol. 4, No. 3), there two Rebour
\r?\n> drawings of details from Geminiani's 1951 Tour bike. Geminiani
\r?\n> used
\r?\n> Campagnolo quick releases, complete with "Frankenstein" nuts
\r?\n> (and
\r?\n> Simplex derailleurs, TA chainrings and Durax steel cranks). The
\r?\n> caption states: "Once dropout thickness had been standardized to
\r?\n> facilitate quick wheel changes, most racers replaced their
\r?\n> wingnuts
\r?\n> with quick releases."
\r?\n>
\r?\n> The original drawing and text appeared in Le Cycle 8/4/1951. I
\r?\n> think
\r?\n> the original article even stated what the standard dropout
\r?\n> thicknesses were.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> So if you discount the war years, it took a little over 10 years
\r?\n> for
\r?\n> frame builders to agree on common dropout thicknesses. Then
\r?\n> quick
\r?\n> releases became generally accepted in professional racing.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Jan Heine
\r?\n> Editor
\r?\n> Bicycle Quarterly
\r?\n> 140 Lakeside Ave #C
\r?\n> Seattle WA 98122
\r?\n> http://www.bikequarterly.com