Back to Business: Your Bike is a Disaster

You didn't think I had gone soft did you?! I know many of my regular readers were probably asking themselves, "who's this clown?" I kid of course, but I assure you that while I am the caring person that wrote the last two posts, I am also the jerk that wrote the other 53. I do this for your betterment you know. Honest! We can't have folks riding around all willy nilly, some just need a little direction.  

Some more than others, but hell, at the end of the day, it's worth it if it helps me sleep at night. 

Though I suppose it wouldn't hurt if Natural Selection took a little off my plate 

and started, well, selecting...

Willy Nilly

You can't fix stupid but you can fix stupid's bike, and it often starts with his quick release skewers. You know, "...those, um, lever things? That hold the like, wheel thing in the bike?"

Yeah, I know the ones:

This makes Hulk sad :(

Invented by none other than Tulio the Great, the quick release was the best way to remove and replace a wheel in a hurry. When people proved too stupid to use them correctly, they became confounded by the introduction of "lawyer lips."

"Lawyer lips or lawyer tabs (a type of positive retention device) are tabs fitted to the fork ends on the front fork of bicycles sold in some countries (particularly the U.S.) to prevent a wheel from leaving the fork if the quick release skewer comes undone. They were introduced in response to lawsuits supported by experts including John Forester, in cases where incorrectly adjusted quick release wheels came out of the forks. Lawyer tabs are designed to compensate for the fact that many riders do not know how to operate a quick release properly: some riders treat them as a folding wing nut, and others do not tighten them enough for fear of snapping them or shearing the skewer"
  
So because some people could not wrap their heads around how to use a device properly (which is as simple as reading the directions), they got hurt and then "lawyered-up." Rather than using the damn things like they were designed, they had to be re-designed (by law) so even the most brain-dead redneck could use them.

...which they still cannot

I see this more often than I care to admit.

...And this is what they get.

  This dude ate shit in the middle of an intersection because his skewer was loose. When he took off, he lifted the bike just enough that the wheel went one way, and the fork went the other. 

BAM!!

Yes, it is true that this fork was made before the advent of "lawyer lips" but I maintain that this could have been avoided had the user simply followed the directions. 

While I can fix Stupid's mistakes, I would rather he didn't make them. 

Please don't be stupid.