Originally Posted by
bulgie
They were fine in the rear too as long as you filed the dropouts the way Harlan described. Nobody ever did though! He wanted you to file an upward notch into the upper part of the dropout slot, deep enough that the axle would nestle in there and not get pulled forward by hard pedaling. You had to file the left and right dropouts, in the exact same spot (to have the wheel center between the chainstays, and the exact same depth, to get the wheel centered between the seatstays. Great in theory, but who's going to bastardize their beautiful Campy dropout that way?
I'm familiar with the technique, and was looking through my bit of Hi-E literature to see if I could find it... but nope. Seemed like too much of a distraction at the time to delve into it.
Jim Cunningham did display (at the 2018 CR gathering) a Graftek frame fitted with all of the weight-weenie gear of the era. Among the w.w. gear was the Hi-E hi-lo rear hub.....
The frame has horizontal dropouts, but I'm guessing that he's not riding the bike too vigorously.
Someone must have convinced Harlan that he needed some sort of QR that could hang onto the dropout face a bit more securely, because he came out with a 2nd generation skewer design. It used a proper wingnut, and had some sort of raised lip that would fit into a corresponding depression/slot/groove/?? in the dropout. He sold the tool to cut that groove in the dropout. This is based on some literature that I got from him with an order ....
Steve in Peoria