cyclezen

a recent Road Forum thread brought about this Q.

Does anyone, who might have some historical perspective, have any idea why horizontal dropouts dominated for so long on both High End Off-The-SHelf Frames and Custom Frames?
I seem to remember seeing the very occasional frame with vertical dropouts, even back in the 70's. But horizontal dropouts seemed to dominate almost up to the 90's...
Why?
ON cheaper and maybe Touring frames I could see the horizontals could allow greater range of wheel adjustment for just about any tire size which might fit between older, more spread chainstays...
But on a 'racing bike', tire size, for overall diameter, has been a very tight range and has been so for all the decades I've raced (from '71 until just a couple seasons ago...) So adjustability for tire size is really a non issue.
Anyone have any ideas why horizontal droupouts were so 'de facto' ???

prathmann

OTOH, there wasn't much of an advantage to vertical dropouts until companies came out with boutique, but functionally inferior, QR designs. And having vertical dropouts requires more accurate symmetry of the chainstays possibly requiring new equipment for frame makers.

Horizontal dropouts allow the frame to be used without a rear derailleur or chain tensioner, so one could switch between road use and occasional track use just by swapping the rear wheel. And in winter it was sometimes nice to switch to an internal gear hub instead of trying to keep a derailleur functioning in snow and ice.

LesterOfPuppets

Why? Cuz bikes were fixed or single speed for a LONG time. It's nice to be able to move the axle on such drivetrains.

I'm guessing because If it ain't broke, don't fix it?

unterhausen

when I started building, you could get forged horizontal drops or crappy sheet metal vertical drops. Horizontal drops were fine until the component manufacturers started making QR skewers that don't develop enough force to keep the wheel from slipping.

Doug Fattic 

It was mentioned before in this thread but my primary take on why most frames in the classic era used horizontal dropouts was because European framebuilders of that time period used simple tooling to build a frame. The most difficult part of a frame build is to get both chain stays to be precisely the same length so a rear wheel exactly centers. A small difference is magnified out by the rim. This difficulty is easily solved by using horizontal dropouts with screw adjusters.

Sixty Fiver

My 1955 Raleigh Lenton "Reg Harris Road Model"... the horizontal dropouts allowed for the use of a fixed wheel (stock on this model), an internally geared hub (optional), and would have allowed for the use of derailleur gearing which came to dominate during this period.

In the old days the bike you rode during the competitive season was also used to train on in the winter and for this many rode a fixed wheel and others would start their season riding the fixed wheel to establish conditioning and cadence.

This was not a cheap bike in it's day... it would have cost 2-3 weeks pay.

Sixty Fiver

Open cam skewers are the work of satan... they are only good for vertical drops and with a frame fitted with horizontal drops you do have more drive options available and with a good closed cam skewer the wheel is not going to slip at all.

Andrew R Stewart 

On the subject of QR skewers- I try to get riders to use the trainer stand supplied skewer if at all possible. Funny how some think that the steel, closed cam, skewer that comes with better trainers are only for use with the trainer. Andy.

Whizzer283

Andrew - Why are trainer supplied skewers better?

MassiveD

I don't even like quick releases, seems like another one of those 10 speed racing bike innovations that don't make any sense for just about anyone. At least for my touring bike I always have the means with me to undo a bolt, and I can fix a flat with a wheel on if I really have to

Andrew R Stewart 

Trainer Stands (or at least the popular ones) use the end caps of the QR skewer to Hold the bike by. So the skewer needs to have a dome like shape for the trainer's azle clamps to secure.

Many current skewers have the cam open to the air and the cam rotates against a plastic surface. This plastic "bearing" surface has some compressionability. As the cam is exposed to the world the friction that the cam/lever sees has to be low and agreeable with grit and contamimant. So the plastic, to a degree, limits the clamping pressure. Additionally the parts of the skewer that press against the drop out are made of Aluminum, often. This doesn't give much bite into a drop out. Lastly many people don't have the hand strength or skin toughness to tighten skewers (of poor design) to a high level of clamping.

Combine all together and we have an industry that has favored poor designs in an area of critical importance. How much would you pay to insure that your wheels didn't come off when hitting that pot hole when your in a down hill tuck? By the choice of the masses not very much. In fact if a bike has time tested and proven skewer design it's considered a cheap bike and not worth much.

The classic inclosed/dome ended/steel capped skewers hold much tighter, are far less prone to loosening up and REALLY only add a few grams of weight, but add a lot of security. I do not use any of the poor/open designs on any of my bikes. Andy.


Oh did I say that steel lasts a long time and almost never breaks?

JohnDThompson 

Horizontal dropouts allow chain tensioning on bikes without a derailleur; i.e. fixed gear, single-speed, internally geared hubs, etc. For most of the 20th century these comprised the majority of bikes on the road (and probably still do, outside of the 1st world recreational riders). Forward facing horizontal dropouts facilitate use of mudguards, an important feature on working bikes ridden in all conditions. And some people make the point that vertical dropouts require tighter manufacturing tolerances to ensure the wheel is properly aligned in the dropouts, although my experience in working on modern bikes with vertical dropouts doesn't seem to support this position.

unterhausen

I don't know if this was mentioned, but a lot of people only had one bike and would switch back and forth for track racing. It was also somewhat common to train on fixed gear in the winter.

Wulf

The Campagnolo cambio corsa required long horizontal drops. Since there were no pullys the chain slack while shifting gears was taken up by sliding the hub forward and back in the dropouts. You pedalled backwards to shift

fietsbob

Index shifting, apparently needs the Axle to always be in the same place
when the wheel goes back in. so +1 for Vertical dropouts .




Internal eccentric QR's clamp with More force (than the external ones) ,
and the ends are rounded , so to fit in the Trainer stand Mount..

unterhausen

I love those things, but it wasn't a good reason for having horizontal dropouts. The Cambio Corsa drops have a rack to keep the axle straight from side to side. I really want to build a frame with Cambio Corsa, bad case of framebuilder n+1

MassiveD

https://www.nashbar.com/bikes/Product...39_-1___202459

I've been using these recently, assuming proper execution, are these strong and safe to use? I have not had any problems, they don't seem to loosen. I think they look better, and are lighter and less drag. I don't really see any advantage to QRs.

Could someone post a photo of the kind of QR we should get if we had to use them. I would like to make a bike with butterfuly nuts, some day, because I remember my mother's touring bike had them, and it would be fun to use them again, but they don't seem to come for the kind of hubs I use.

ftwelder

Fixies? LOL

Mark Kelly 

If your axles are long enough to accept butterfly nuts it would be a simple matter to braze some up using a nice stainless which will accept a high degree of polish.

10mm x 1mm pitch is an ISO metric fine standard under ISO 724 so taps are commonly available, the usual M10 is ISO metric course (10mm x 1.5).

unterhausen

You can still get wingnuts. Somebody is having some really nice ones made, but of course they are expensive. They really went away because of horizontal drops, so if you have vertical drops there is no reason not to use them.

MassiveD

Yeah, velo O has them, and a bike pall of mine has a bunch, "somewhere". The problem is they don't work on the axles that are prevalent today, and based on skewers. I guess one could make a set up for a skewer, but it all seems weak compared to the old stuff we had.

I think the ones I remember were for horizontal drops, but I can't be sure. My mom was over in England in the early 50s and bought a bike for touring. It was a then racy drop handlebar 3 speed, with SA hub, and the wing nuts I remember. It was highly recommended by the people who she consulted with, but I don't know how appropriate it really was. Would a bike like that have had vertical drops? I don't really remember seeing vertical drops until comparatively recently.

unterhausen

when I worked as a bike mechanic back in the '70s you still would see a bike with wingnuts on it. Mostly on the front wheel only, but sometimes on the back. Hated to have to mess with one of those.

With vertical drops and rim brakes, it requires almost no force on the skewer to hold the wheel on. Hi-E had a wingnut skewer, but it only had a single dowel sticking out of it. I think I still have one somewhere. They worked fine, even on the rear with vertical dropouts.

Andrew R Stewart 

Perhaps one advantage of wing nuts is that "those who don't think about things that effect them" should still be ablt to use them. Too bad they still won't have wheels that are well secured because they won't tighten them to the point of hand discomfort. Andy.

SJX426 

Somewhere in my distant past, I had a bike with wing nuts. Thought they were really cool! Didn't work all that well as I was constantly checking for tightness. The rear was especially bad as the wheel would often move due to the torque of peddling. I was just teenager at the time.

ksisler

How do you tighten them? Looks like they require one to wrench on them with a pair of pliers... can't see how they can call them bolt-on when there is no hex bolt end to put a wrench on?