Filing off fork "teeth"?

[Avispa]

I received a 2008 F3 fork from Serotta to replace the old F3 that was on my Ottrott. Nice fork, most of it is similar to the older ones, with the noticeable exception that the drop outs now would allow one to fit most wheels/hubs styles.

One feature I found, which I didn't like is that the drop-outs now have these little teeth, which hold the wheel in place, even if the skewer is open. I am a aware this is a "security" feature. However, it is a nuisance to have to " unscrew" the skewer to open it further, especially if one has older forks and other bikes without this feature.

Since the drop-outs are Ti, what kind of file should one use to take them off?

..A..

[corky]

take a Dremel to 'em if that is your want

[swoop]

file and smile.

[A.L.Breguet]

I do it, but check here for lots of opinions:
http://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=16737&highlight=lawyer+tabs
Or better yet, here: http://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=13428

[stevep]

any file will do it.
just be sure you want to and a few passes and they will disappear

[RudAwkning]

Dust 'em. They defeat the purpose of having a "quick" release.

[avalonracing]

Unless you are racing there is no reason to loose the "lawyer tabs".
But hey, if it is pissing off the team mechanic in the support car on your 30 mile afternoon spin... Go ahead, take them off.

[swoop]

Unless you are racing there is no reason to loose the "lawyer tabs".
But hey, if it is pissing off the team mechanic in the support car on your 30 mile afternoon spin... Go ahead, take them off.

not true. if you find them to be a pain.. file the tabs. if you find comfort in
them, keep them. i trust darwin.. and somehow have survived an entire life sans tabs.. am i lucky?
if you can't put a wheel on its your turn to outrun the lion....

atmo.

wheel changes in races tend to come fromt he pits.. where you have time or from neutral support and their wheels are always never spaced right anyway.

just do what feels good. i hate the tabs.. its a pet peeve. its not a statement about my manliness on the bike because i am a ball of suck on one...

my favorite moment ever as bike 'racer' was at san dimas as a freaking 4... having a mavic motorbike give me a wheel on the last lap... it felt so PRO! having break-rub didn't feel so pro... and losing the race having made the final selection with 800m to go didn't feel so pro...

but the motorbike part was effing cool.

[jeffg]

not true. if you find them to be a pain.. file the tabs. if you find comfort in
them, keep them. i trust darwin.. and somehow have survived an entire life sans tabs.. am i lucky?
if you can't put a wheel on its your turn to outrun the lion....

atmo.



Totally agree with Swoop, and if he is a ball of suck then there are no words to describe me on a bike.

I just know I never had an issue with the F2 or older Alpha Q forks I have that do not have the tabs.

By contrast, I was putting my front wheel in for a gran fondo in the Dolomites where you line up at about 4:30 am (8500 riders). I had to unscrew the release all the way to get the wheel out and then the spring popped out in the dark in the gravel parking lot :crap: It took me about 20 minutes to find and I had to ride hard to make the start. As soon as the ride was over I had those tabs filed off!!!

:bike:

[dbrk]

Brother, think of how much you flat...well, when you are Ramblin'...now think of the hassle of removing that wheel...now get out the file. Dave's bringing extra spares. Youda'man, btw.

dbr

[davids]

The filing always seemed to be more work than turning the QR a few more turns.

[vaxn8r]

Brother, think of how much you flat...well, when you are Ramblin'...now think of the hassle of removing that wheel...now get out the file. Dave's bringing extra spares. Youda'man, btw.

dbr
Do you change wheels often? Often enough? I haven't met a fork I wasn't willing to take a file to. Just do it, you'll never regret it, but if you don't you'll curse every time you have to unwind the "QR" nut.

I may die in a bike crash, but I guarantee it will never be because I loaded the front wheel into the fork drop out and then left the QR open.

BTW, I use a grinding wheel drill bit. Be careful, you don't want to grind away your fork drop out. It takes me a total of 3 minutes to get out the drill, attach the bit, do the job and put everything away. I've done it about 7-8 times now...still alive.

[Too Tall]

Darwin tabs.

[djg]

I don't see anything wrong with filing them, but it's pretty easy to deal with them as they are too. I know, for example, that if I hold the QR lever and turn the tab on the other side three full revolutions, it will clear the "lawyer" tabs on my Alpha Q fork easily. So I just count. If you know how many turns you need, it's less than a second to twist it loose, and less than a second to tighten again.

[David Kirk]

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/697388/2/istockphoto_697388_do_not_remove_this_tag.jpg



Dave

[cleavel]

Hi,

I have been filing off the tabs for years. Need to do so on my Attack and Bianchi D2 Crono Carbon. I also have tabs on HSC 5 SL fork on my Look KG481SL. The HSC fork has carbon dropouts.

My question is can you file the tabs on carbon dropouts without hurting the structural integrity of the dropout?

I hate the tabs but I like my life. ;)

[sspielman]

Get some friends and family together some evening....have some nice food...some good wine...and have a bris and file 'em off!

[Bud_E]

Get some friends and family together some evening....have some nice food...some good wine...and have a bris and file 'em off!

If you had a file used at your bris you must be one tough dude. :beer:

[swoop]

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/697388/2/istockphoto_697388_do_not_remove_this_tag.jpg



Dave


this, my friends... is the sign on the doorway to the dark side.

[RudAwkning]

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/697388/2/istockphoto_697388_do_not_remove_this_tag.jpg



Dave

Blended cotton felt and urethane foam? What's wrong with good ole steel? I knew you'd sell out Mr. Kirk! :p

[Kervin]

I was just reading this story during lunch. It is from Sprinter della Casa (http://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.com/) :

Everyone knows that some guy was riding his bike with his QR not done right, the front wheel fell off, the guy lost a lot of teeth, sued the bike company, and won. This led to various iterations of the "Lawyer tabs", the fork dropout raised edges that prevent a wheel from popping off if the skewer is undone (intentionally or not). Most racers file the nibs down so that in a race situation, they can get a wheel change in 10 or so seconds.

Before the lawyer tabs there were some pretty terrible inventions. The worst were the metal tabs found on Schwinns for a while. The clipped into fork-mounted screws and held the wheel prisoner till you firmly unlatched the two latches to release the wheel. It required different axle nuts, a differently brazed fork, and were impossible to remove reasonably quickly.

Most shops (and riders) cursed this unknown guy with the new teeth that caused all these problems. They cursed the fact that this guy turned John Howard into an expert witness who testified that quick release skewers loosen up over time on their own. And they cursed him every time the wheel hung up on whatever safety device was on the bike.

Well, that guy with the new teeth was my boss for 7 months.

Yep. No one liked him - he was pompous, ineffective, and didn't have a real bone in his body. He is what I call a putz or a bozo. He's so clueless he doesn't even know what he doesn't know. I could go on and on so I'll do so in a different post.

After a month or two of his big fake grins (meaning the feeling behind the grin, not the fake teeth themselves), he learned I was a "biker". He came over to my desk and asked if I knew about the things that keep front wheels on. I replied to the affirmative. He then proudly told me that he was responsible for singlehandedly changing the bike industry since his lawsuit forced bike companies to have some kind of wheel retention system on all their quick-release equipped bikes.

He was a football coach for a high school team and rode his bike "all the time". (This was to imply he knew how quick releases work, which he didn't). One day he rode to school, then to practice, and when he left the field house after practice, his front wheel simply fell out. What I suspect happened (my opinion, no proof) is that his not-as-clueless football players played a little trick on him and just loosened his QR. If you ever met this guy, you'd understand. His total lack of substance just screams "play a joke on me". Even I'm saying it and I don't condone jokes like that.

Anyway, he said as he rode off the curb the front wheel came out and he face planted into the pavement. He lost a lot of teeth and sued the shop and the bike company (I think the victim was Raleigh). And he won a lot of money. It bought him some teeth, paid for his house, and got him some other stuff I forget.

[stevep]

yeeesh,
if you work in a shop today you will see bikes come in all the time with the skewers just turned down and not secured.
every day.
maybe the guy was never shown how it worked, maybe its not his bike, maybe he just forgot.
who knows.
the shop guy will tell him how it operates and the next time in its done wrong again.

lawyer tabs are a good idea in this business, take 'em off if you hate 'em.

[Avispa]

Brother, think of how much you flat...well, when you are Ramblin'...now think of the hassle of removing that wheel...now get out the file. Dave's bringing extra spares....

That's it! There is no way in hell they will be staying on... Now BBDave better teach us how to change a flat in 30 secs of less!

:D :D

..A..

[mcteague]

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/697388/2/istockphoto_697388_do_not_remove_this_tag.jpg



Dave
If you are the consumer, then removing the tab is not an issue. The penalty is only for the retail business.

As for filing the fork tabs off, just wait until your fork's warranty has expired otherwise, I suspect, it will have done so when first the file hits the tab.

Tim McTeague

[William]

Hey, there’s no tabs on the steel fork that came on the Effin Cross Bike?!?!?! I’ve been screwed!!! Mike, you’re going to be hearing from me!!! :argue: <mumble..mumble…mumble no freakin lawyer tabs…what the heck is this world coming too….???>






William

PS: That was Sarcasm folks. By the way, use a bastard.

[ergott]

The filing always seemed to be more work than turning the QR a few more turns.

Nah, the filing takes one moment of your time. The annoying job or readjusting your QR every time you take a wheel off is the pits. If you use a bike rack with a fork mount, you end up taking the wheel off all the time.

I think the tabs are an insult to one's intelligence. The last few forks I've had, (Time, Colnago, Serotta F2) all came without the tabs.

[Ahneida Ride]

Big Brother knows best .....

It's for your protection .... it is always sold that way ...

cause you ain't smart enough to think for yourself.

[sspielman]

Big Brother knows best .....

It's for your protection .... it is always sold that way ...

cause you ain't smart enough to think for yourself.


What is interesting is how many of these "safety devices" actually make the product FAR more dangerous.....I have a ladder with some kind of "safety device" feet that render it almost useless......and FAR less stable than if they were omitted entirely

[Dekonick]

I don't see anything wrong with filing them, but it's pretty easy to deal with them as they are too. I know, for example, that if I hold the QR lever and turn the tab on the other side three full revolutions, it will clear the "lawyer" tabs on my Alpha Q fork easily. So I just count. If you know how many turns you need, it's less than a second to twist it loose, and less than a second to tighten again.

Thats what I do - I just know its 3 turns. Werks fer me :beer:

[Dekonick]

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/697388/2/istockphoto_697388_do_not_remove_this_tag.jpg



Dave


I'm Telling!!!

[swoop]

Hi,


My question is can you file the tabs on carbon dropouts without hurting the structural integrity of the dropout?

I hate the tabs but I like my life. ;)


yes..

[steve575]

Does anyone have a fox mtb fork? The quick release nut is in a huge recess. You about have to take the nut clear off to remove the wheel. It burns me up everytime I mount the bike in the truck.
As for road bikes, my Colnago and CSI (steel fork) didn't come with tabs.

[avalonracing]

I find it pretty funny that cyclists, generally known for their incredible perseverance, get so annoyed with the spinning a wheel skewer a few times. Could it be that it tests their already limited upper body strength? :D

I've had some forks on race bikes that were tabbed, some without tabs and some filed and it has never bothered me much. But a chip in the paint on a top-tube... That's enough of a reason to buy a new bike.

[capybaras]

ATHO a goat can snip those off for you real quick