By: Jonathan Gennick with Garrett Walden
Every now and then I or a friend gets a little too exuberant with our quick releases. We over-tighten. Then we can’t get them loose. I used to go at them with a vice-grips or a pliers, using a rag to protect from gouging and scratching. No more! Today Garrett and I made a handy little tool for the purpose.
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My hand still hurts from getting this lever too tight for Garrett to open
We began with a quick trip to the LHS. That’s LHS for Local Hardware Store. Ours is four blocks down the hill, and one block over. There we caused some wonderment amongst staff as we cruised through aisles grabbing short lengths of tubing and testing to see whether our three different quick-release handles that we’d brought along would fit inside the various available tubes. Finally we settled on some 3/4 – inch CPVC pipe.
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The pipe! And the bike.
Minimum purchase was a five-foot section at about a buck a foot. We bought the five feet and walked home to cut our pipe to a convenient length. Park Tool’s SG-6 Saw Guide came in handy for making the cuts. And my neighbor generously provided use of his bench-vice and basement workshop. We ended up with a 9 1/2 – inch section of pipe.
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We began on the porch but a vice made the cutting so much easier
The tool works fabulously. Just slide it over the end of any quick-release lever and pull back. Easy. There is plenty of leverage to overcome the most stubbornly-tight lever. And all the force is directed at the lever itself. There’s no prying or levering against fork legs or frame members. The tool becomes an extension of the lever and makes child’s play of opening it.
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“Give me a lever long enough…” – Archimedes
Sometimes quick-release levers get closed right up against a fork leg, or against seat- and chain-stays at the back of the bike. For those situations we took a round file and beveled a section of inside edge on our pipe. The resulting thin edge slides easily in between a stuck lever and frame stay or fork leg.
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Bevel some of the inside edge for when clearances get tight
Our new Quick-Release Releaser works great. Dare we term it the QRR-1? It’s fun to make, easy to use, and is unlikely to scratch anything on the bike. This is a tool we’ll be keeping around the workshop and using more often that we’d probably like to admit.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to my good friend Garrett for pulling me out of work early today for a fun project. And thanks to my generous neighbor Gordie Robere for the use of his vice. And especial thanks to the bemused LHS tech at Madigan’s Hardware who took us into the store’s basement to let us browse the tubing options.
Additional note on QR Skewers: A functional quick release skewer is critical to the overall safety of a bicycle. It is possible for the skewer to become damaged if over tightened. Always inspect for damage. If in doubt, replace the skewer with a new one.
