rear-facing dropouts

Tosspot wrote:

Is there a reason, besides the common use of
hub gearboxes, so many Dutch commuters these
days have track ends rather than dropouts?

Stops the rear wheel falling off.

Is this a joke or do you mean if the nuts come
loose the chain will still hold the wheel to
make time for an emergency stop?

Yeah, what *are* the "functional difference[s]"
between track ends and dropouts? I always
considered dropouts better and more modern but
now that I think about it I don't know how or
why I came to that.

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