‘Wheel ejection theory’ heats up again

November 2nd, 2005 by Mike

Via: BikeBiz.com

Chatter on the Usenet about James Annan’s 2003 wheel ejection theory - a concept backed by tech gurus Jobst Brandt from America, Leonard Zinn of VeloNews in the US and Chris Juden of the UK’s CTC - has been increasing in the last few days. However, there’s still a lot more smoke than fire, and Annan still hasn’t read ‘How to win friends and influence people’.

There have been hundreds of ‘Annan theory’ posts to Usenet forums in the last two weeks. Annan’s disc-brake-QR-wheel-ejection theory was a hotly debated topic in the summer of 2003 but, apart from updates to Annan’s website, discussion of his theory has been relatively low-key since then.

Keep Reading for more info like this quote from Jobst Brandt, author of The Bicycle Wheel…

“…At Interbike I mentioned it to several of the disc brake people as I pursued the issue of why bicycle discs [are] a mere filigreed ring rather than a solid disc ring. Most of them knew about the wheel ejection issue and chose not to comment on it as far as I could see. In any case they said, yes we’ve heard of it, and changed the subject.”

The links below will give you some background into this debate and a pretty heated post on Usenet.

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/julesandjames/home/disk_and_quick_release/index.html

http://www.velonews.com/tech/report/articles/7765.0.html

USENET DISCUSSION:
http://tinyurl.com/899l2

2 Responses to “‘Wheel ejection theory’ heats up again”

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1 Fritz on Nov 2nd, 2005 at 12:59 pm

Yeah, what’s old is new again. Have you guys ever known anybody who’s front wheel was ejected by the disc brake?
2 Guitar Ted on Nov 2nd, 2005 at 10:36 pm

I have by no means exhausted the information available on this subject, so with that in mind…..

1. No one offers a solution. Curious, isn’t it? Of course, why would you offer a solution for free when you could be making money from it!

2. The problem is real, and the research makes sense. How do you solve it? It’s nearly impossible to do anything for what’s already in the marketplace. What? Hundreds of thousands of disc brake equipped bikes, with any number of skewer/ brake/ fork combinations already in use?

3. In the future, wouldn’t the forward facing dropout be sufficient? It eliminates the ejection path that forces exert, so I do not see why this can’t be implemented on future forks.

4. The fork manufacturers are doing little things. Have you removed a front wheel from an ‘05 or ‘06 model year disc brake equipped bike? You nearly have to take the QR nut completely off the skewer now to clear the tabs!

5. No, I have not seen this problem in the field. How many race events were held in this country,(U.S.A.) and had any instances of this phenomenon? I’d think the stresses of racing would exacerbate the problem compared to normal trail riding.

‘Wheel ejection theory’ heats up again

2 Responses to “‘Wheel ejection theory’ heats up again”

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