At 11:31 2/18/2001 -0800, C. Andrews wrote:
>I'm sure this has been asked and answered more than once here...but, is
>there some dire consequence to putting a 126mm sized rear axle into a
>130mm spaced rear triangle, and light squeezing the stays together at the
>drop-outs when you tighten the quick-release?
Personally, I'll predict the following:
1) You will get away with it, no problems.
2) Each time you go to change wheels, you will feel frustrated about
having to mess with skewer adjustments and wrasslin' the thing together,
since you may have to loosen the skewer to get it in the slot more-or-less
gracefully.
The technical issue is not, to me, the possible strain on the stays. It is the potential strain on the hub axle and bearings. The hub really likes having parallel drop-outs. When you pull the dropouts in to accomodate the 126 hub, you're pulling the flats so their back ends are trying to point in. This strain is resisted by the skewer trying to pull the fronts of the flats together. Part of the accomodation will be a slight warping of the axle, bowing so the front approaches the bb just a bit. With a nekkid axle and cones, that would be measurable, I think. Whether it will make any functional difference in component life, I don't know.... Ain't a big effect.
Harvey Sachs (with the blessing of a friendly metallurist, I once spread a Moulton 16" wheel rear fork to 130 mm to mount a Sachs 3x7, and it is working fine, so I got lazy and decided that cold setting is better than stressing)