Bicycle front wheel removal

[2ManyBoxes]

Mountain bikes are the worst thing that ever happened to cycling, it was simple before that. Now you've got suspension and disc brakes it's your own fault.

I'd be inclined to take it down to your local non-arrogant bike shop, if you've got one where you live, and they'll do it while you wait.

 

[Tony L]

Mountain bikes are the worst thing that ever happened to cycling, it was simple before that. Now you've got suspension and disc brakes it's your own fault.

In fairness that does look like an exceptionally daft mountain bike! I’ve never had the slightest issue getting the wheels off mine (standard skewers, though I have ‘Pitlock’ security bolts so I can leave it locked when out shopping and still have wheels when I come back).

PS Mine, built around a classic ‘93 Kona Explosif steel frame, has sensible brakes too!

 

[stevec67]

In fairness that does look like an exceptionally daft mountain bike! I’ve never had the slightest issue getting the wheels off mine (standard skewers, though I have ‘Pitlock’ security bolts so I can leave it locked when out shopping and still have wheels when I come back).

PS Mine, built around a classic ‘93 Kona Explosif steel frame, has sensible brakes too!

If it has the Shimano cantis I sold you they are far from sensible! A royal PITA to set up and nowhere near as effective as V brakes. Period correct they may be, but the appeal ends there!

 

[stevec67]

Chances are if you've not removed it in a long time that the anodizing has worn off the thru axle where it meets the inner race on your cartridge bearing and the two are now nicely 'galled' together.

My daily driver did this pre xmas despite regular wheel removal and greasing. Just took a couple of wet rides and lazy storage without drying the bike.

Assuming you've not missed a simple removal trick your best bet is to hacksaw through the end caps on either side of the hub, including the thru axle, you'll need two new endcaps and a new thru axle. Check with cube on spares availability first.

What a stupid piece of design. Wet rides are the norm, and who on earth dries their bike after use? My commuter gets hosed down when it's lucky, left to dry and oiled. That's it. It's survived 25 years of that so far and nothing has seized up. Lots of things have worn out, but nothing seize d.

 

[Tony L]

If it has the Shimano cantis I sold you they are far from sensible! A royal PITA to set up and nowhere near as effective as V brakes. Period correct they may be, but the appeal ends there!

Yes, I know what you mean, though they work well enough for me. I’ve never not been able to stop in time. V-Brakes are better and really good enough for anyone bar pro-riders IMO.

 

[2ManyBoxes]

I’ve never not been able to stop in time.

That goes some way to explaining why Tour de France riders these days have no idea how to do a real emergency stop i.e. death grip on the brake levers and feet out of the pedals onto the road. At the last second dump the bike and carry on sliding on your feet alone.

They can't corner for sh*t either - have they never watched a MotoGP race and wondered why they corner with the bike as high as possible and their own weight as low as possible?

 

[-alan-]

^ Well off topic here but..

If you're serious..Having eaten tarmac a while back with a bike-dog interface incident, I'm intrigued - how are you supposed to manage to offload the bike and transition from wheeled support to foot ?
Do you try to dismount to one side, opt to try step over the bars, or find some way to go backwards over the saddle ??

 

[sq225917]

Lol, I used to be able to get my knee down on my vfr400r, I sure as 5hit could never do it on any push bike I've owned, and I've loads.

 

[sq225917]

You can hop off the back grab the saddle as you go or side dismount and hold bar and saddle. Only try it in road shoes with 3 bolt cleats though. You'll be tasting tarmac if you try it in mtb spd shoes.

 

[stevec67]

They can't corner for sh*t either - have they never watched a MotoGP race and wondered why they corner with the bike as high as possible and their own weight as low as possible?

They most certainly can corner, the pros train with motorcyclists on all sorts of bikes to improve their bike handling skills.

 

[NeilR]

That goes some way to explaining why Tour de France riders these days have no idea how to do a real emergency stop i.e. death grip on the brake levers and feet out of the pedals onto the road. At the last second dump the bike and carry on sliding on your feet alone.

They can't corner for sh*t either - have they never watched a MotoGP race and wondered why they corner with the bike as high as possible and their own weight as low as possible?

have you actually ridden a modern road bike?

 

[stevec67]

You can hop off the back grab the saddle as you go or side dismount and hold bar and saddle. Only try it in road shoes with 3 bolt cleats though. You'll be tasting tarmac if you try it in mtb spd shoes.

My bailout technique is to get as much speed off as possible then grab a handful of front brake and stand the thing on its nose. This fires you over the bars, I can usually vault over the bike and land on my feet. If not then it's motorbike roll time, get on your back and wait for it all to stop.

 

[richardg]

Cliff, the wheel model is unimportant, it's a thru axle, it's just a plain metal shaft on the outside in this case. The axle is specific to the fork, not the wheel.

Either way rich you need to cut the wheel out first, unless you intend on buying new wheel and fork.

You could try supporting the end of the fork leg and then hammering the shaft through from the other side. But there's no poitn just trying to force the axle through unless you support the opposite leg, all you'll do is flex the other leg otherwise. With the end caps removed the wheel will wobble in the fork, don't mistake this for being loose, it's just the axle play in the bearings when they aren't side loaded, multiplied by the distance from bearing to rim.

Drift it out, or cut it off.

Thanks, its going to a bike shop tomorrow, I need to see how this works. We followed the instructions, it says on the capo, it needs to come off first, but when you take it off there is nothing but roundness.

 

[richardg]

I’ve never had the slightest issue getting the wheels off mine

Me neither. Obviously this experience proves I am no bike expert. But I have probably owned 30 or so bicycles in my life. I can change sprockets, bearings, brakes, cranks, I can fit tubeless tyres (just). But I still can't get this ffing wheel off.

So it got rammed into the back of the car for a journey back from Brussels with the wheel still on.

 

[richardg]

That goes some way to explaining why Tour de France riders these days have no idea how to do a real emergency stop.

What do you mean?

 

[2ManyBoxes]

^ Well off topic here but..

If you're serious..Having eaten tarmac a while back with a bike-dog interface incident, I'm intrigued - how are you supposed to manage to offload the bike and transition from wheeled support to foot ?
Do you try to dismount to one side, opt to try step over the bars, or find some way to go backwards over the saddle ??

Both feet off the pedals, off the saddle forwards so that both feet and your full weight are on the ground, knees bent. Slide your feet along the ground and use the bike to maintain some sort of stability. At the last second dump the bike so that it hopefully doesn't get damaged as much as going straight into whatever you're about to hit. Then try to spread the impact over as big an area as possible.

Of course, this assumes that the road surface isn't high grip or the stones-sticking-out-of tarmac variety and your shoes will slip as well.

Bike-dog is a bit different, presumably you've got only a few seconds to react and dogs are so wide compared to people. Also they tend to deliberately move into the way so swerving isn't an option. I'm more talking about when you've got more than 5 to 10 seconds to do something about whatever's happening.

With dogs sometimes you've got no chance. The only time that that happened to me I chose to run into the dog. If the dog has decided to attack me, and you can tell when it has that intention, my attitude is that it's either me or him so I'm going to hit him first before he gets his teeth into me. I hit him square on and that made him think again. Fortunately it wasn't that high speed an encounter so I don't think I injured him unless he was easily offended by bad language.

 

[2ManyBoxes]

have you actually ridden a modern road bike?

No and I can't say that I've ever ridden anything with really aggressive front fork angles. I understand that that makes the bike twitchier but I don't understand why it affects the basic idea of keeping as much tread as possible in contact with the road when cornering. You do this by moving your weight off the saddle and down as low as you can. I'm not sure but shouldn't that also stabilise the bike because you're lowering the centre of gravity?

 

[2ManyBoxes]

Me neither. Obviously this experience proves I am no bike expert. But I have probably owned 30 or so bicycles in my life. I can change sprockets, bearings, brakes, cranks, I can fit tubeless tyres (just). But I still can't get this ffing wheel off.

Presumably you haven't got the aforementioned big Allen key so try putting a nut into the hole, obviously as snug a fit as possible, and then apply a spanner to the nut. You'll need a deep enough nut however and some way of keeping enough nut proud so that you can get a decent hold on it.

If that last tightening up was done up at the factory then they probably used an air gun to do it, in which case it's going to be on pretty damn tight. It could be like trying to undo your car wheel nuts after it's been to the garage - very embarrassing next to the M6.

It could be a case of swallowing your pride and taking it to the bike shop, who will probably have the necessary tool. Either that or hacksaw the forks off

 

[Roger Adams]

It does rather strike me that the move on road bikes to discs and specifically through axles is purely commercially driven.

The limit under braking and during cornering is surely dictated by the contact patch in all conditions.

Are the road discs deliberately underpowered in order to allow new riders to simply "slam on the anchors" safely? I suppose, one day, every rider will be forced to adopt them. What a shame. I'm guessing there was a reason they were called QUICK releases.

 

[Arkless Electronics]

you may need a Birmingham screwdriver.