Never worn them down as the first thing I always do is file the dang things off on new bikes.

---

Graham Wilson
USAT Level III Elite Coach
http://www.thewilsongroup.biz

Interesting comment from the video poster, I wonder if they'll delete that considering it's obviously complete nonsense.

I thought the rules stipulated that it was illegal to file the tabs off if they are on a fork, but if the fork is manufactured without them then you can still use it. That way, the teams only need a stock of team-issue tabless forks from the manufacturer to technically comply with the rules.

Yes, they wear down from continued use of a dremel tool.

---

ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

My Colnago is a few years old, but it didn't come with them.

---

---------------------------
''Sweeney - you can both crush your AG *and* cruise in dead last!! 😂 '' Murphy's Law

+1, it's amazing how fast they wear down vs. a rotary tool.

---

My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

And here I am using a file like a sucker!

---

/kj

http://kjmcawesome.tumblr.com/

I never understood the dislike of the tabs. They've never impeded me much at all.

Ironically, I think the pros could use them the most given how often I've seen a rider start riding while the mechanic is still trying to tighten up the skewer....

I also don't get the outsize hatred of the tabs. It just takes a few extra turns of the skewer to get by them, so an extra 5 seconds per wheel change?

A couple of years ago a friend went down in a group ride with my bike club. Nobody is really sure exactly why, but the most likely theory we had was that his front wheel skewer was loose, caused a wobble, and caused him go down.

Tragically, he died. A few extra seconds to loosen or tighten a wheel does not seem like that big a deal to me.

"A couple of years ago a friend went down in a group ride with my bike club. Nobody is really sure exactly why, but the most likely theory we had was that his front wheel skewer was loose, caused a wobble, and caused him go down."

in my opinion it is somewhere between highly unlikely and impossible for a quick release to loosen. for the first decade and a half of my cycling career we did not have lawyer lips. i never heard of that happening. no one ever heard of that happening. because it doesn't happen.

still, let's say it did happen. i don't know how it would have prevented the crash you speak of. if the crash was caused by a wobble from a loose QR that wobble would have happened (and probably did happen) on a bike with lawyer lips.

my guess, when this happens, is that people take their bike out of their car or off their roof rack, put the wheel in, get distracted, and don't tighten down the skewer.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I've heard that with disc breaks it's possible to pull a wheel out during an emergency stop without lawyer lips. And with a reasonably well-tightened skewer. Hence thru-axles.

I find they wear down in just a few minutes. It's apparently illegal to file them off.......so I grind mine off. Much faster anyway.

While I don't need speedy wheel changes in races or when cycle commutin, I quite often throw my bike in the back of the station wagon with the front wheel off. It's so much quicker with no "lawyer knobs"

I know there have been cases where a lawyer has been useful, but on the whole, I'm not sure they've created as much benefit as grief. On balance, I'd say they are bad. However, I must admit I have a few friends that are lawyers. They seem nice enough outside the office. Maybe law is the ideal profession for schizophrenics? Nice sometimes, a pain in the butt at others?

---

TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

I swear, watching the televized bike races that wheel changes are taking longer ever since UCI banned filing off the lawyer tabs. Five seconds to those guys trying to stay in a break is huge.
Watch mechanics spin skewer a few times, flip it, too lose, open, spin some more and then tighten.
I thought for sure by now that someone would come out with a skewer with more pull on the can.

Mine don't get much wear mainly cuz I don't have to take my front tire off to put my bike in the back seat of my car.

One of the perks of having a small bike :)

jaretj

DT Swiss has the RWS Skewer that simply rotates to tighten. Fast and tight.

The sucker will be the guy that slips using the Dremel and mangles his fork. I much prefer a hand file for this kind of job, I save the Dremel for less precise jobs where more material needs to be removed or you need the high rpms to be effective. It's a short operation with a sharp file.

Lawyer tabs saved my ass once during a mountain bike race. Front wheel came loose on a down hill part. I could see it wobbling around. I credit the lawyer tabs, although it could have also been a result of me becoming very religious during those 60 seconds of speeding down a hill.

I don't see much use for them on a road bike.

---

_________________________________
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

Ochowicz was willing to dope with EPO why wouldn't he cheat with lawyer tabs? =)

---

---

Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

I've gone out with my rear skewer loose but not the front. The mount for the Computrainer can hold onto the nut when you take it off and the skewer gets loosened. And since I ride a Cervelo it can escape out the back when you hit the brakes and take the tension off the chain.

---

I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

I thought for sure by now that someone would come out with a skewer with more pull on the cam.

There is a pretty simple relationship between cam travel and leverage/force. If you increase cam travel you lose clamping force.

Plus it would completely negate the purpose of the tabs, which is to necessitate unscrewing the skewer in order to get the wheel off.

The cam could easily be designed to give the same clamping force at the end of it's travel but also open wider.

It's not done, because of your point, that it negates the purpose of the lawyer knobs. It would no longer be idiot proof

The problem with making something idiot proof is that humanity simply comes up with better idiots!

---

TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

The no-filing-lawyer-tabs comes from a stupid rule about equipment modification. No manufacturer is going to sell a bike without them so the pro teams make a lame excuse about how the tabs came to be missing and the officials look the other way.

---

ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Of course. It's just that it's such a stupid excuse I'm surprised they would even bother posting on the internet

Obviously they don't wear down and obviously you don't want them there if speedy wheel changes are necessary. I don't think anyone would seriously question that, though, so why bother with such a disingenuous answer? A bit comical.

The former part of this is a bit more complicated than that.
There's a French law mandating that *all* bikes must have Lawyer tabs, including those ridden in competition. French teams were finding themselves at a competitive disadvantage in races where they would find themselves forced to ride bikes with tabs when other teams didn't have to, with the resultant slow wheel changes. After a full season of this disparity - and (reportedly) the expected grousing from the French teams, In 2013, the UCI moved to rectify the problem via an explicit application and enforcement of the "no modifications" rule already on the books.
Kinda' makes sense, given the backstory... and makes the BS coming from BMC even more clearly simple cheating.

---

Tech writer/support on this here site. FIST school instructor and certified bike fitter. Formerly at Diamondback Bikes, LeMond Fitness, FSA, TiCycles, etc.
Coaching and bike fit - http://source-e.net/ Cyclocross blog - https://crosssports.net/ BJJ instruction - https://ballardbjj.com/

I'm speaking of a skewer for racers. They want fast wheel changes. They don't care about the idiots, they can keep their slow skewers.