One of the things that has worked out well for my inherited dropout alignment tools is that they can be unscrewed to hold a specific width while doing the alignment allowing you to hot rod a wider spaced wheel onto a narrower set of dropouts. I just did this for the 115 spaced Taylor I had an ASC hub on to work with a standard 120 mm track hub. I've aligned dropouts for modern 130 mm spacing on a narrower set without respacing the stays. It's a tight fit, but there aren't any stresses to the axle flats or bearings and the frame stays essentially vintage. I'm mostly running 126 mm hubs on my old seventies 120 mm frames, and only a couple have been respaced for 126. It may be sacriligeous to some, but I get to ride them all.
Happy trails,
Dan Artley in Parkton, Maryland USA
Archive-URL: http://search.bikelist.org/
Dmitry Yaitskov asked about what sort out of the ordinary tools members had found useful.
I found that for a sort of an unusual tool, I got a lot of mileage out of a set of dropout alignment tools. Nearly all of my bikes were just a touch off. My hunch is that every bump into anything or pothole may move the dropouts a bit (Is this true? ) It's just a hunch on my part. I think 12 out of 14 bikes I checked could have used a tweak. I frankly noticed no difference in riding them, however. Maybe I was just fascinated to have the tools like a kid with a new toy. Good lord! I see a set of them just went through E-Bay for $128! I sold mine for about half that. Ah well, somebody is enjoying them.
Tom Sanders
Lansing, MI USA