Rear Wheel Removal

I find it a lot easier to do if you hold the rear derailleur cage out of the way with one hand, while removing the wheel with another.

I still don't know how the pro tour mechanics manage to remove (and moreso, re-fit) wheels so quickly though :o

rek said:

I still don't know how the pro tour mechanics manage to remove (and moreso, re-fit) wheels so quickly though :o

I wish there was some good footage or a how to guide on this. (Ill have a dig around) But damn they do a wheel change like it was the f1, so damn quick. You cant tell me its just practice.

Hammer. You've got to use a five pound ball hammer. 🙂 Just kidding. I agree that swinging back the rear derailleur with one hand allows the wheel to come out much easier. Otherwise, the chain is partially wrapped under the cog, trapping it. The chain hanger is only for -after- you've removed the wheel. Other problems I've seen are not using the quick release on the brakes (tire gets caught between the pads) and having the tire wedge against the chain stay or seat tube. Letting out a bit of air helps for that one.

I'd say that the secret to doing this quickly is a lot of practice. The reason that race support guys can do it so quickly is a combination of practice, sheer panic, and knowing that it's not your equipment that you're manhandling... At least that was my experience when I tried working race support a few times.

John Swanson
www.bikephysics.com

The key is dropping it into the smallest cassette cog to give you some chain slack. Practice makes perfect.

mrkott3r said:

I wish there was some good footage or a how to guide on this. (Ill have a dig around) But damn they do a wheel change like it was the f1, so damn quick. You cant tell me its just practice.

Oh yes I can... :-) The clue's in the middle sentence there – why are the F1 guys so quick? Practice, practice and more practice... It's their job, after all.
As someone else said, you also need to get the chain on the smallest sprocket (so you don't have to move the wheel so far sideways to clear the chain), and pull the derailleur body back and out of the way (to get the lower chain run clear of the sprocket so the wheel can drop free). If the wheel still sticks in the dropouts, a light thump with the heel of your hand will usually shock it free (I find this is more often needed with alloy frames/dropouts than with steel ones, especially if the quick release has been over-tightened. Just keep practising and it'll all come naturally in the end.

fauxpas said:

K, dunno why, but when I removed my rear wheel this afternoon, I fould it very hard to get off. It may be cause I have a small frame size.

The seat stays have the knob to hang the chain. I pulled the chain up onto it, undid the brake cam and quick release skewer... I thought it would drop down and forward off the chain, but it was tight as hell...

Admittedly, I aint done it on a roadie before... Am I doing something wrong? As videos of the tour show pros removing the rear wheel in seconds... unless its edited video...

As incredible as this will sound, it MAY simply be that your TYRE is too large!?!

That is, when inflated, the tyre itself is impeding removal/insertion ... YES, I recently "helped" a friend get his rear wheel BACK onto his bike by suggesting that he let air out of the tyre ... he couldn't believe I was suggesting THAT (he had called me on the phone), but after an hour of struggling, he relented ... and, yes, the wheel slipped back into his frame! He was stupified by the frame's tight clearance.

Let some air out of the tyre and see if that allows you to remove the wheel more easily ...

IF SO, then you will be faced with the inconvenience of needing to inflate the tire AFTER the wheel is in the frame OR use a smaller (?) tyre.

BTW/FYI. My observation is that different tyre brands have different profiles -- for example, a 700x23 Continental seems to have a BIGGER circumference than a 700x25 Michelin; so, I can only imagine that a 700x25 Continental is probably close to a 700x28 in some tyre brands.

Like others have said, it's easier with the tyre deflated. I think it's quite easy and I can do it fast, but most of the time the tyre gets a bit caught in the brakes (eventhough I loosen the quieck release). I can make it come loose by wriggeling it a bit. I think one of the reasons why pro mechanics do it so fast is that they almost always do it when a rider has a flat. They don't have my problem with the brakes.

The inner side of the right seatstay has a lug I thought was there to hang the chain on to assist in wheel removal... I must be wrong, as by hanging the chain there it reduced the amount of chain slack I had to swing back the RD...

Yup. It's only there for after you've removed the wheel... 🙂

John Swanson
www.bikephysics.com

fauxpas said:

The inner side of the right seatstay has a lug I thought was there to hang the chain on to assist in wheel removal... I must be wrong, as by hanging the chain there it reduced the amount of chain slack I had to swing back the RD...

fauxpas said:

The inner side of the right seatstay has a lug I thought was there to hang the chain on to assist in wheel removal... I must be wrong, as by hanging the chain there it reduced the amount of chain slack I had to swing back the RD...

If that lug is about 3" above the dropout, and the size of a small nail head, then it is indeed to hang the chain on AFTER you remove the wheel ... you use it is to keep the chain from draping over the chainstay & subsequently scratching the paint on the chainstay ...

By my recollection, the chain hangers were introduced in the late-70s/early-80s before chainstay "guards" became the norm.

to take a rear wheel off quickly:
1. shift into the small chainring and small(er) cog
2. undo the rear quick release and open up rear brake if applicable
3. from left or rear of bike, lift up rear of bike using the rear derailleur with your right hand. your left should be holding onto the seatstay to guide the bike around.
4. as you lift, pull the derailleur back. unless you have rear facing dropouts, your wheel will drop out of the frame.
5. grab the wheel with your right hand as it drops and toss it to the curb. or if you own the wheel, put it gently on the ground 🙂

if you want to do this quickly without spending a year following races around hoping for a flat tire to fix, repeat above steps 20 times. you'll be pretty fluent by the time you finish that. you should be able to do this in 2-3 seconds if you are firm and decisive with your motions.

to put on a wheel quickly:
1. stand behind the bike, holding the left seatstay with your left hand and the right hand holding the derailleur,
2. drop the bike so it's straddling the rear wheel
*bonus if you can guess which gear the chainshould be on based on the derailleur position.
3. push the derailleur forward to give chain slack, maneuver bike so chain goes around cassette.
*bonus if you put the chain on approximately the right cog
4. when chain is on the (hopefully) correct cog, let derailleur spring back and drop bike so chainstays are on wheel.
5a. if horizontal dropouts, pull wheel back into drop outs
5b. if vertical dropouts, smack seatstays down low on both sides to seat wheel quickly. bike will drop down when skewer ends clear frame.
6. verify wheel is all the way in the dropout and tighten quick release

Putting the wheel on, if the chain doesn't get hung up or the wheel drops in nicely on the first or second tap, should take about 5-8 seconds for a quickie.

Rae Dawn Chong (Cheech's daughter) changed a rear wheel, unedited, in 10 seconds in American Flyers. Practice a few times and you'll be able to do it too.

happy practicing
cdr

It is certainly possible to clamp a brake cable so short that a 23mm tyre cannot escape through the brake pads even with opening of the release cam and screwing in the barrel adjuster fully. I'd always prefer to adjust the clamp rather than deflate the tyre, particularly as this would be a permanent solution.

I have a question. How do i untangle my bike chain on my moutain bike without takeing the chain off the bike. COULD SOME1 PLEASE HELP ME A.S.A.P

Kewl kewl, thanks for that... will get to practicing that this weekend...

I know now I had the bike in the wrong gear last time and didn't give myself enough slack...

Thanks again, for all the tips... and certainly the step by step tips came in handy last night when I planned it all out in my head before approaching the bike...

I stepped up to the bike and;

chose the small cogs front and rear
released the brake cam
released the quick release skewer
picked the bike up

The wheel fell such that as I lifted the bike, the wheel remained on the ground. I only had to touch the chain once to manouver it around the skewer nut, but the chain was very slack and no force was needed. Nor did I need to touch the RD.

I guestimated it took about 20-30sec from approaching the bike to having the wheel off in my hand... And that's from a guy who's never done it before and was not in a hurry...

I replaced both tyres and tubes...

When replacing the rear wheel, I manouvered the skewer nut to inside the chain and lined up the small cog to the chain, then brought it all up and in she slipped being mindful of where the skewer needed to go. Again, no more than 20-30sec.

Ta muchly and I hope this helps others that may have been doing it wrong...