Lawyer's Lips, aka Retention Tabs  
 

A short history of these cursed ridges.

 

Definition:

 Lawyer`s Lips: Noun. Stupid ridges added by litigious Americans to bicycle fork drop-out in order to scupper the perfectly elegant quick release invented in 1928 by Tullio Campagnolo.

 

The universally hated lawyer`s lip.

 

  
 

You’ve got them, you continually curse them, but yet you never give them another thought – until you have to remove your front wheel again. Some people don’t even remember life before them and therefore don’t miss Tullio’s great invention. Today all new bicycles are dumbed down in order to defy natural selection. They are fitted with ridges placed in such a way on the front drop-outs, that you cannot just undo the quick release lever and have the wheel drop out of the fork. You first have to unscrew the lever a good five or six turns until it clears the ridges, before the wheel can come out. This cumbersome way of removing bicycle wheels is exactly what irritated the greatest cycling inventor of all times, Tullio Campagnolo and he promptly invented the quick release – his first patent. Many more were to follow. Before that we had to remove wheels using a spanner and prayer, since the revolving nuts tend to move against the fork and set the wheel skew.

 

Tullio Campagnolo: I don't a wanta no stienkin lawyer's lips spoila my a inventeeon!

In the early 1990s, cycling took off in the USA, thanks to Greg Le Mond becoming the first American ever to win the Tour de France. The bike boom wasn't even peaking yet when dozens of people who couldn’t read instructions or figure out how a cammed lever (such as the QR) works, had accidents when their front wheels came out whilst riding. They ignored the wobbly front end, the rattling emanating from the front wheel and trusted in their guardian angels. Even though this is just nature’s way of keeping the gene pool pure, the lawyers climbed in and started to sue bicycle companies left, right and centre.

 

After a couple of Darwinian mishaps, bicycle companies quickly invented the retention tab, dubbed by old-school cyclists as the "lawyer’s lip" and today, you are the victim of someone's stupidity. This photo shows how a retention tab on the drop-out keeps the QR from "dropping out" once released. The only way to get this QR off is to unscrew it.

 

Although the disc braked bicycle is a valid application of these retainers (see the cautionary at the end of this article), their origin precedes disk brakes and have no validly on rim-brake bikes other than to prevent careless people from hurting themselves. Your best guarantee for safety is a pre-ride check and good habits when securing your front wheel. If you can trust yourself, a lip-free bicycle is a pleasure.

Read here why Lawyer's Lips are on your side if you ride a disk-braked bicycle.

How to get rid of the scourge.

Tools required:

In order to bring the intended elegance of a quick-release wheel back to your bicycle, you don’t need much other than a file and some elbow grease.
If it’s almost your birthday or, if you’ve had a birthday within the last six months, you may treat yourself with a labour-saving device in the form of a hand-held grinder or Dremel tool. Buy several grindstones, buffs, drills, sanding and cutting disks at the same time. Your next birthday may still be months away!

How to get rid of them lips.

Step 1:
Remove your front wheel (the tedious way, for the last time) and clamp your fork in a sturdy workstand. This is important, don’t try and work by holding it in one hand. The aluminium on the fork is far harder than you think and you’ll make a mess of it.

Step 2:
With a pencil or even the edge of a file, mark a line through the centre of the ridged circle formed around the circular recess meant for the quick release skewer. The line should be roughly horizontal when the bike is standing in its normal position with both wheels on terra firma.

Step 3:
Once you’re satisfied that you’ve identified the top and bottom half of the ridge, start filing. Keep the file flat with the vertical line of the drop-out and resist the tendency of the file to want to work at an angle. It doesn’t matter of you file more material away than intended and infringe on the top half. The ridge is in no way structural and filing away more than half of it is simply more work. But don’t be sloppy.


Filing off tabs
File a guiding centre line exactly through the centre of the imaginary circle
formed by a jamb nut on the QR before starting to remove
the material at the bottom half of the drop-out tab.

 

 

A miniature grinder can help remove the bulk of the material
but use a flat file to remove the final material in order
to achieve a flat mating surface.

Step 4:
Once you are satisfied that the ridge is gone and the bottom of the drop-out tab now nice and flat, move over to the other side and repeat the process. It is best to leave the last bit of material for removal with a fine, flat file. A grinder leaves circular gouges and creates a poor QR/drop-out interface.

Step 5:
Don’t bother polishing out the file marks but you may want to consider some touching up on the paint. However, aluminium doesn’t rust and the paint will soon be gnawed away by the quick release in anyway.


Step 6.
Now place the front wheel in its drop-out tabs, adjust your quick release so that it requires a very firm push (the lever should leave an indent in the palm of your hand) and revel in the knowledge that you’ll never every have to spin the QR lever and unscrew the QR just to get the front wheel out.

An aluminium drop-out with its retaining ridges filed off. This particular drop-out
is fitted to a carbon fork on a road bike. Note how only the bottom half of the ridges were removed

Anything I should know about?


Don't perform this modification on bicycles with disc brakes!

Properly adjusted quick releases are extremely safe. The cam design ensures that they don’t open by themselves and besides, on a bicycle with rim brakes (road bikes and V-brake mountain bikes) there is no force that pulls on the wheel, edging it toward the open drop-out. On mountain bikes with disk brakes however, you can envisage a wheel eject action when the brake is applied. Draw a little line diagram indicating the direction of the various forces, if you can’t see it. The wheel is forced downwards with a large force that will easily eject the wheel should it not be tightened properly. It has been suggested that long-term use of the bike without periodically removing and replacing the wheel, can also make the wheel eject, even when the QR is closed tightly. American ambulance-chasing lawyers are already scouting hospitals for such cases and I'm sure one or two will turn up. I have no doubt that frame manufacturers will soon produce an even safer bike for American customers, with the disk brake in front of the fork.

Read here how to operate a Quick Release