Originally Posted by
CliffordK
It is likely that 135mm will eventually be adopted by road standards, but we're not there yet, and I wouldn't be too eager to jump ahead of the game. There are also reasons why the industry isn't eager to change.
Technically the current standard is the 131mm, but everyone seems to ignore that extra mm.
As far as cold setting or not, there are equally valid arguments either way. I run friction shifters on my old bike with 9 speed on the rear and vintage 5/6 speed on the front. So far I haven't cold set it, but run an off center rim instead. Since I have several bikes, there would be advantages to making everything match, but I prefer having one wheel set per bike anyway.
The late Volagi bike company's first models had 135 rear spacing, they used disc brakes and went to the mtb parts bin for hubs. When "29ers" caught on, the oddness became less so, but I don't see a rush to adopt 135 spacing road hubs.
A tragic tale overall, sued by Specialized, they came away intact but poor, then one of the founders sustained a nasty crash that put the skewer in the business.