Thumpic

They really do work.........
I'm gonna tell on myself.........I've got a '90s mid-quality MTB for sale. I've reposted it and adjusted the price over the last month or so. I took it out for a test spin after re-habbing it back in August and really like the ride. So I've been riding it back and forth to the bar, store, park, etc....maybe 2 - 3 times a week. During the reposting I noticed something odd in one of the photos. Sure enough; the front wheel has only been finger tight at best and the QR was even thrown over. Between the "lawyer lips" and the minimum QR tension the wheel had been merrily riding along for over a month.

I haven't crashed down any fire trails or anything, but I've gone off enough curbs and culverts to warrant an extra prayer of thanks tonight............

unterhausen

education works better. In my experience, the problem is that due to lawyer lips there are a large number of people with wheels that are not actually firmly attached to their bicycle.

Thumpic

education did not keep my wheel on; it was the lawyer lips. True, there is no substitution for knowledge; but built in redundancy has it's place too.

unterhausen

I'm glad you figured that out without being injured.

I'll admit to reading between the lines here, but I am guessing that your wheel was loose because you had to remove it and when you replaced it you didn't properly adjust your quick release. To me, properly adjusting a quick release is much more difficult than using a properly adjusted quick release. Lawyer lips force you to adjust the quick release every time you remove the wheel. I'm starting to think we should just go back to wingnuts

genec

Two of my bikes don't have lawyer lips... the wheels have never fallen off.

One of my bikes does have lawyer lips... I have tightened the quick release on the LL vice the actual dropout. (have to adjust the QR every damn time when you have LL) I have had wheels fall off with the LL due to the QR being thus mis-tightened. (I check the LL equipped wheels TWICE now due to that one circumstance... )

Kurt Erlenbach

A wise and appropriate sentiment.

genec

It's only "redundancy" if it works.

atbman

So lawyer's lips are good? Just the people I want to decide how mechanical devices should be designed.

Why were they introduced? Because people didn't know how to use quick releases and simple unwound and wound them up using the lever as a kind of knob.

And what do the LL's do? They force you to unwind and wind them up before using them as they were designed to be used. Run that improvement by me again.

Thumpic

Sorry....I don't see the mystery.........


The safety feature kept the wheel on.




What am I missing?

jefferee

You're missing the fact that having to loosen and tighten the QR nut every time the wheel goes on and off makes QR mis-adjustment and loose wheels far more likely to happen with lawyer lips than without.

genec

Proper use of a QR has kept wheels on for decades... Lawyer Lips just complicated the issue.

canopus 

No, the "safety" feature forced you/someone to make a change to the skewer tension in order to remove the wheel at some time in past. The lack of knowledge on how to properly tighten a QR lever resulted in it being loose and having the ability to come off the fork.

Had the lawyer lips never been there, the person removing the wheel in the beginning would have never had to change the tension on the skewer and chances are the wheel wouldn't have been loose after it was replaced.

25 years, no lawyer lips, no accidents, no lost wheels. Knowledge is power.

chasm54

^^ This. Another "safety" feature that makes it more likely that someone will do something dangerous.

Thumpic

No...this is incorrect. The QR was simply not engaged. The QR nut was tensioned correctly; the lever simply needed throwing.

The fact is that if the originator of QR had incorporated the LL fork change; this discussion would not even take place. It would be an accepted part of bicycle design.

And lawyers didn't design them; it was very likely a frame designer at Schwinn or any number of big bike companies.

And it's naive to think that wheels have never fallen off before lawyer lips. They are inconvenient; but they work. At least it did for me and that's all the proof I need.

Do they work 100% of the time? Of course not, but nothing does. Are LL needed on all bikes? Of course not. Does the casual weekend hobbyist (and kids) need these types of safety features? You bet they do!

I'm glad they were there and the next guy (or his kid) that loses his front wheel from a fork without them; will wish he had them too.

I'm done.......

John Forester

I suggest that Thumpic's belief that his QR was correctly adjusted but just did not have the lever thrown over is incorrect. All the lawyer lips that I have seen are sufficiently thick that the wheel cannot be either removed or replaced with the QR simply unlatched. All of them, so I have seen, require that the QR have the adjustment removed, loosened, to remove the wheel, and the wheel cannot be replaced while the QR is properly adjusted. Therefore, the QR has to be readjusted for every replacement.

I think it most unlikely that Thumpic readjusted the QR but failed to engage it, because it is impossible to adjust the QR without actually determining the proper adjustment by engaging the QR.

thirdgenbird

LL? if I get a fork with them I remove them. Long live Tullio...

canopus 

Ok you do realize that the quickrelease was invented by Tullio Campagnolo back in the 30's right...
And that it was also used to release the rear wheel to allow it to shift, while the rider was pedaling at the same time.
And that it worked for almost 50 years before lawyer lips came along.

John Forester

I see no reason to conclude, or even to suggest, that Thumpic is lying. So far as I know, he has no reason to lie, such as, for instance, to collect some large sum of money. I think that he is honestly mistaken about what he did. He could, for example, have made an improper adjustment of the QR so that it did come loose. QRs are made to go overcenter when properly adjusted and then engaged, which makes it virtually impossible to come loose through vibration or similar. But if it is adjusted too tight it clamps without going overcenter, so that vibration can loosen it. This is the condition in which lawyer lips can do their job, because the QR is too tight to hold itself closed, and is also too tight to go over the lawyer lips if it does come loose.

My point has always been, and others have written this herein, that QRs need careful initial adjustment to the actual fork they are attached to. (That's why racing teams all have fork ends of identical thickness, so that any wheel can be put into any fork without the need for any further adjustment.) But after that initial careful adjustment, the QR can be opened and closed many times without any further adjustment. Lawyer lips make every wheel removal a requirement for careful initial adjustment -- which, being done on the road, or at the back of a car, can easily be done carelessly.

Kurt Erlenbach

Thumpic - You won't convince these guys. I agree with you that they're good things and that they prevent accidents. They're annoying and make it tougher to get the wheel on and off, but they work. Even the most diligent person makes a mistake once in a while, and the redundancy that lawyer lips provide is a good thing. Safer products are better for everyone.

chasm54

But these aren't safer products, because they increase the chance of human error such as the one thumpic described. His anecdote is in all probability an argument against LL, not for them.

John Forester

I think that this is an improper analysis. Lawyer lips are not redundant, in that they provide protection when the primary system fails. Lawyer lips work only in some circumstances. The cyclist fails to operate the QR lever? LLs won't work, because the QR already has to be sufficiently wide to let the wheel in, or to fall out. LLs work only in some cases of QR misadjustment. And, as has been argued above, LLs increase the probability that the cyclist will make a misadjustment by a very large factor. Not once done, carefully, but done for every wheel removal, in a hurry, or in the dark or rain, or when in a hurry to start a ride, when care cannot be expected.

genec

Oh good god, we're in full agreement!

unterhausen

It seems to me that lawyer lips only work to protect those that use the QR as a wingnut. If you put the wheel on and leave the QR untouched, they might offer the slightest protection, but I wouldn't want to count on it.

Before the days of CPSC mandated front wheel retention devices, a lot of the bikes that came into the shop I worked at had QR levers tightened down like a wingnut. It actually works reasonably well on the front wheel. I'm sure this happens even more often now that lawyer lips are in vogue. Most of the wheel retention methods that came after the CPSC had some kind of flaw that made it so they weren't passive enough.

jputnam

If forks had lips before Q/R front wheels came along, the lips would have been improved off of the design by some astute engineer.

atbman

They were designed because lawyers successfully sued (a) manufacturer(s) because people didn't know how to use QRs, just as they successfully sued Raleigh Industries of America for not telling some halfwit/his parents that he needed lights on his bike at night.

Some day, you'll find walking boots with "Do not walk of the edge of cliffs" printed on the toes.