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Hello everyone, Peter here. Sixthreezero, ebikes, and bikes. How to use the front wheel quick release. All right. Let's talk about the quick-release skewer. Okay. This is an innovation that many people know about and then a lot don't. This was innovated actually for racers, so they could switch out their flat wheel, flat tires very quickly. Actually, in the Tour de France or really any other race, a wheel can be switched out in about 10 seconds actually. They'll bring a brand new wheel. They won't even switch the tire out. They'll just bring a whole new wheel that's ready, and then just pull this one out and slip the new one in. The whole process literally takes about 10 seconds. It's quite amazing. That's because of the quick-release skewer, which is really just a rod that goes through the center of your wheel through the axle, and then there's a cam. There's actually a cam lever right here, which squeezes the wheel in place.
Okay. Once the wheel is in the dropouts right here, there's no axle protruding beyond the fork dropouts. The axle, which is surprising to a lot of folks, it has threads, but it's a very thin little bit of thread right here. It doesn't look long enough for an axle, so that definitely surprises folks a lot of times. When I'm sling this one in, this one has a disc brake, so I need to make sure that the rotor goes right into the caliper there and then that the front wheel, I'm sorry, axle rests in the dropouts. Okay.
Now, there are two springs. These springs are not actually necessary for the function of the quick release. There they are. I don't know if you can get them, Nate. That's also for the racers and what it does is when the quick release is open, it actually pops the quick-release apart from each other. It pops it out a little bit so that the wheel can drop out really, really fast. In a race, they'll just undo the lever usually, maybe do a couple of twists of the thing, and then they'll just lift up the front of the bike. That wheel will fall out. They'll slip a new one in and just tighten it back in.
So anyway, these springs are not actually necessary, but they are a little handy. When you put them in, they're shaped like a cone. The narrow end of the cone will go inwards. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and take this one. There's one spring for one side, and then the other spring will go in with the nut on the other side. Okay. We're going to slip the quick release in.
Now, normally it doesn't matter which side of the bike the lever goes on. Normally, it'll go on what we call the right side, which is this side over here, the non-chain side. That's because most people are right-handed. Okay. And so in a race, they want everything to be consistent. And so it's always on that same side. In this case, the disc breaks over there. I have more room over here. So I'm going to put it on the right side of the bike. This is the right side of the bike with the chain and then this is the left side. I got it backward because I'm looking at it. Sorry about that.
I'm going to put the other spring in, the narrow end of the cone in first, and then I'm going to put the nut on. Now, this is all with the lever open. You can see all those springs just pop the mechanism out. So it goes clear of the dropouts. The dropout's the part that it's going to clamp to. With the lever in the open position, it actually says open here and then close there. Okay. With the lever open, I'm going to start to tighten this nut down till it starts to get a little firm, and then I'm going to test it. I'm going to close the lever and that's way too easy, so that's not tight enough. Okay. I'm going to go a little bit more and try it again. Still a little easy, but it is stiffer.
Now, it's getting nice. It's getting a little more difficult for me to turn the nut and then I'm going to see if I can bring it in this time. Now, it's too hard. It's too hard for me. I could do it if I really forced it, but you don't want to do that and break anything. It doesn't need to be that tight. So I'm going to actually back the nut off a little bit and then try again and that's perfect. And then it's going to leave a little impression on the palm on my hand, just like that. If you get to where it's really hard and impossible, but that's going to be too tight, back it off just a little bit and then tighten it again.
Now, one important thing. The cam has to go past 180 degrees. Okay. Don't line it up with the fork like this, and then go into here. That's not far enough. It's not actually locked. This is a very dangerous thing that happens a lot. It can just open on its own very easily. Okay. It actually needs to swing like this. So it's open like this all the way, and then there are 180 degrees and then it goes past 180 degrees to lock it. That's a very important point.
I'm doing it forward because this bike also has fenders. It's also not a performance bike. In the performance world, you would probably tuck it behind the fork to save a little bit on wind resistance, which actually in a race can make a difference. Okay. I hope that pretty much explains everything about the front quick release. The rear quick release will work the same if your bike has one. All right. Thank you. I truly hope that was helpful for you. If you liked it, please do like it and hit subscribe. It helps grow our channel. And if you need any help at all, please contact us. You can call us at 310-982-2877 or email us at theteam@sixthreezero.com. Remember, sixthreezero spelled out, S-I-X, T-H-R-E-E, Z-E-R-O. Theteam@sixthreezero.com. Thanks.