Originally Posted by
Grumparoo
It's happened to me, twice. After the second time I switched to a solid rear axle, which solved the problem for good.
It used to be fairly common with freewheel-style hubs but is much less so with cassettes. Solid rear axles are no solution since 1) the small amount of extra material in the center adds almost no strength, and 2) many (but not all) solid axles are made of inferior metal to QR axles that are usually higher quality. My first broken axle was on my Varsity which used a solid axle.