Quick Release - Making it Slow

[Tiberius]

My son is about to take delivery if a new bike, and its got a quick release front wheel, which we both agree is a bad thing since he's going to be using it at university.

Is there a neat way of making this non quick release? A couple of ideas occur to me, but....

Replace the mechanism with a threaded rod and two nuts. Or is the QR rod high tensile and we're going to find a threaded rod isn't strong enough?

Wire lock the lever to the fork, aircraft style.

Any other ideas?

Nick

 

[giguana]

Maybe what you can do is to fix the quick release lever as close as you can to the fork, in line, and then to secure it to the fork, using for example some wire wrapped around both so that it would take even longer than a cog to undo.

 

[swinnerton]

How about drilling a hole in the q/r lever and cable tie it to the fork.
Regards
Gerry

 

[Tiberius]

Giguana, Swinnerton,

This may be what we end up doing. Aircraft style wire locking would involve drilling a 1 mm or so hole in the lever and then wiring it to the fork with stainless steel wire. The ends of the wire are then finished in a neat twist. It would take a fairly serious pair of cutters or pliers to release it.

An even neater job could be done with a rubber clad steel P clip around the fork.

I was just wondering if there was a standard mod.

Nick

 

[Mussels]

I was just wondering if there was a standard mod.

Nick

Yes, quick release locks are common and the work like alloy wheel locks.

Pinhead Bicycle Component Locks - Twin Pack | Buy Online | ChainReactionCycles.com

 

[Tiberius]

Thanks Mussels,

But I think my student son would struggle with their definition of "inexpensive". Isn't this just a way of replacing the lever with a fancy nut?

Nick

 

[Mussels]

Thanks Mussels,

But I think my student son would struggle with their definition of "inexpensive". Isn't this just a way of replacing the lever with a fancy nut?

Nick

It's not that cheap but as far as I know it's the only thing that works, the other option is to release the wheel when he parks and put it by the back wheel locking it all together.

 

[torrent99]

It's not that cheap but as far as I know it's the only thing that works, the other option is to release the wheel when he parks and put it by the back wheel locking it all together.

Or use another cable lock to lock the front wheel and frame to your "solid object". You get slightly better security of the whole bike that way too.

 

[frank9755]

Isn't this just a way of replacing the lever with a fancy nut?

Yes!

But I suppose it's cheaper than getting a new wheel.

A cheaper but less secure option would be just to replace the quick release with a normal skewer.

Frank

 

[Tiberius]

Hi Frank,

Thanks for that, that's the sort of thing I was going to tell him to make on the lathe. Security would be more or less the same as a normal wheel, apart from the extra puzzlement factor.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions, everyone. It looks like a QR system can be fairly easily turned into something more secure than the normal non-QR one.

Nick