Reference has been made to crashes as a result of improper quick release tightening of the front wheel. Since being a dedicated "fixie" and not using quick release skewers anymore, I have wondered about the wisdom of them. A 15 mm wrench for tightening and loosening an axle nut weighs very little. It takes maybe 3 seconds to loosen a track nut. This quick release thing it seems to me was a marketing gimmick to give novices the idea that they needed an ultra fast wheel change to emulate Lance and the others, as they pull over on the side of the road on a $199 Target bike with narry a team car in sight. Many new cyclists do not understand the cam action of quick releases, and the result, especially with the front wheel, can be catastrophic.

What we ended up doing was provide an aide to thieves to get a wheel very quickly, at least to the ones who were not into theft to the extent of getting a 15 mm wrench as a tool of their trade. To add insult to injury they started to provide quick releases to the seat post, which then resulted in the response of people removing seat and post from the frame when they went into the store to get a quart of milk.

Sometimes it is better to regress!