John Redcorn

Wife's bike is an xmart mongoose and of course no quick releases on the wheels. I thought I saw something one time that were some special nuts with a qr handle on them? I can't find them now. We all got bikes around christmas and she really just hasn't gotten into it. I think if she could take it in the car somewhere long and flat like I do she'd be lots more into it.

Would wingnuts be a better option? Can a smaller lady tighten those sufficiently?

She's not into tools and working on stuff and never has been, I worry that quick release nuts or even a regular quick release would be too easy to not get quite tight enough that could cause disaster, there's not really the feel of screwing it down home like there would be with wingnuts.

RPK79

I don't think you could get wingnuts tight enough by hand to be safe.

JamesRL

I had a 70s Favorit racer with tubular rims/tires, and wing nuts on the axle. Never had a problem with them and I did have to change tubulars a couple of times. You can tighten them pretty well, if you are reasonably strong.

fietsbob

one saving grace would be if the rear was a vertical dropout, then the axle wont pull forward ..
so not tight enough wingnuts wouldnt be so catastrophic

the fixie set has spawned a lot of hip 15mm wrenches , and given it is pretty standard for women to carry a handbag

putting a wrench in there seems pretty simple ..
there are thumbscrews , the bolt version of wing-nuts , then the wrench goes on where a water bottle cage would.





though instead , consider just making the tires a puncture resistant as you can .. Buy expensive tires with a puncture barrier in the casing ,

and thorn resistant-heavy duty inner-tubes ..

I'm not sure if you are asking about her taking the wheels off to fit the bike in the car?
why not use a strap on the back of the car bike rack. ?

John Redcorn

We'd only be looking to do this on the front wheel, for getting it into a car. Bike rack for the car will be coming some day if she gets into it enough, I can't justify the cost of that now. Looks like a couple wrenches from HF may be the better option.

fietsbob

seek a conversion of that front axle to QR.. a bike shop may help ,

getting a greasy chained bike into a car and not having the upholstery suffer for the effort . comes to mind

as is it being a lot of work , more so with a heavy bike .

are you going to do that for her each time . I have found it is often a 2 person job.

RPK79

The last time I threw my back out was lifting a bike into a car trunk.

John Redcorn

I didn't even think about difficulty getting it into a car. I do it all the time when I'm driving my car and not my truck but maybe I should let her try it once before I completely say its not time yet for a carrier/rack.