Paul Component Quick Release

30 years ago, you couldn’t buy a bad quick release. They were all some version of the Campy Record quick release, and they were better for it. Nowadays, Sheldon Brown’s eagle, Igor, would cry fowl at the lack of good internal cam quick releases on the market. Ya see, the market has chosen to make garbagy, light weight, ‘sexy’ quick releases, which use external cams. They’re lighter, 'cause the the construction is more simplistic. They’re garbage because external cams easily get contaminated with dirt, and then they loose clamping power. The external cam also does not produce as much clamping force as an internal cam. There are a bunch of well known ‘good looking’ external cam QR’s out there: Salsa, Zip, Hope, etc. And all of them will slip under extreme load. See: disc brakes, horizontal drop outs, ultra low gearing, that sort of thing. Nowadays, there are very few legit good quick releases on the market. Wait. I forgot to the throw the worst ‘quick’ releases currently made under the bus. DT’s skewers don’t even qualify as QRs, and they don’t even have a legit locking function. They’re no better than the old, and much more rad looking, wing nuts, which Quick releases were supposed to do away with. Over-priced, plastic-handled landfill fodder!

If you want a good quick release on a budget, get Shimano’s excellent but uninspired looking skewers. If you want a rebuildable, beautiful, fun colored set of QR’s, get the Paul units. They’ll last a long time, and look good doing it. Campagnolo, the inventor of the internal cam QR, no longer even makes one. Boo!