bt

when the new disc brake craze takes over, will front thru axles be part of the plan?

anotherbrian

Dunno, but when I recently bought a set of carbon disc-brake wheels, I made sure to use hubs that were convertible to through axles (DT 240S fifteen for the front, though it came ready for QR's).

bruce19

I don't really get the thru axle thing. I don't have any problems with my current set up. Is this just a clever solution to a problem that doesn't exist?

bt

for mountain bikes i get it, for roadies it may be a safety feature to keep the wheel from popping out under heavy braking.

Lazyass

That's one new thing I would consider to be good. I believe we need Campag4life's input on this to know fo sure

dtrain

@Cntcasey believes so...and flat mounts:
https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...ry-2015-a.html

redtires

While I'm all for innovation and refinements...I'm for just those. I might be getting to be a bit of curmudgeon as I get older, but re-inventing standards over and over is just getting tiresome. Hopefully, the tapered 45 degree headset will become the norm at least as it really works vs. being some kind of marketing angle. Bottom brackets are out of control and now thru axles and disc brakes. I'm sorry, but this is just too much for the beauty of a well designed, light and sleek roadbike. Just my .02c...but I think these "innovations" are killing the raw sexiness of the road ride. So my answer to the OP question....I hope not when it comes to refined road bikes. Thru-axles and disc brakes may have a practical application for the "new" gravel bike market, or maybe for heavily loaded touring bikes.

Oldhead

that flat mount looks like the brakes on my zx6r street bike

Psimet2001 

They already do. I'm a Van Dessel dealer now and the Motivus Maximus - their top road carbon is disc and rim brake compatible. It comes with different sets of swappable dropouts in the rear to allow the user to do 130 road quick release, 135 quick release and 142x12mm thru axle. The front - they just use 2 different forks. 1 has dropouts and a rim brake mounting hole and the other is a thru axle and disc setup.

Speaking as a person who builds wheels for a living and has 60% of my market as a cyclocross market - the hybrid between road and mtb in terms of technology - we've been building tons of disc and thru axle and swappable setups as the standards have been rolling that way by more and more OEMs.

Is it better? As far as stiffness, yes. It beefs the ever loving tapdancing geebus out of the frame to axle intersection and increases the axle sizes dramatically. Is it needed for road? No. Does any of this matter? No. Road will be 100% disc at some point. Then in many years some company will come out of the blue and show up with a rim brake bike that is lighter than everything else on the market and retro will be cool again. This is nothing new. It's how this industry and it's consumers work.

I just work here...

cale

What I read.... GRRRR RRUMMBLLEEE GRRR ARF ARF ARF GRRRR...RUMBLE GROWL!

I like thru axles because they actually have a good purpose. They're meaty which will improve hub and fork durability, there are no stupid springs to lose, and they are difficult to incorrectly install.

Psimet2001 

I agree but I DO have a big complaint: they, along with the lawyer tabs before them, eliminate the expression "quick" from any type of wheel change. This is a major problem for guys like me that actually provide wheel changes in actual races and do neutral race support. It will happen....I won't be happen but there's nothing I can do about it.

redtires

Yep...well, I admit to my crustiness!!!! You are RIGHT though, the ARE durable and the WILL improve hub and fork durability...but on the types of bikes I mentioned in my post. Heavy duty use bikes such as touring and the gravel bikes (that are so hot in the market right now) will absolutely benefit from a more durable design. My point was, and I think I made it pretty clear, was that this type of "improvement" doesn't have much of a place on the true, refined, lightweight racing road bike. I'll only add this...I've been a cyclist for 30 years, for 12 of those years I was a professional mechanic and a full time frame builder. I've worked on, designed and built THOUSANDS of bikes and I can count on ONE hand with fingers left over the number of times I've ever "incorrectly" installed a wheel or "lost" a spring. It's quite easy really...if it's a rear wheel, the cassette goes on the side of the derailleur. If it's a disc front wheel, the rotor goes on the side of the caliper....if it's a rim brake it honestly doesn't matter as long as the QR lever is on the "correct" side and the tire is rotating in the correct direction (if applicable).

UnfilteredDregs

It makes good sense for the fork with disc.

I really like what DT has done in terms of swappable end caps on their hubs in order to upgrade/change as per standards. Their thru-bolt system is a great way to approach what thru-axle should deliver for non thru-axle bikes.

cale

I understand the absence of need, but can hardly ignore the reality that is marketing and engineering. Let's face it. A lot of these so called "improvements" are a result of manufacturing technology which enables the quick retooling, or reshuffling of tools, to make a design change. The plethora of bottom bracket types is certainly a direct result of modern robotic manufacturing.

The 9mm quick release style will likely be phased out gradually as there are already adapters made.

I will say this about incorrect installation, if it causes a dropped wheel, someone can get seriously hurt or even killed. As a boy some 40 years ago, I rode home from a friends house and woke up in the hospital. It was before lawyer tabs, I had been lifting the wheel for the RR tracks and the wheel came off. It would have been a different story had those blasted (and I hate messing with them too) tabs been built into the fork.

Stucky

I couldn't agree more. Disc brakes; electronic shifting; through axles....by the time they're done foisting all of these "improvements" on us, a high-end CF road bike is going to weigh 30 lbs.

Simplicity and directness is what I think of when thinking about bikes. Anything which subtracts from that, is detrimental.

Technology for technology's sake is detrimental. The most efficient way to do something, is the simplest and most direct way. 100 years ago with steam engines, the Long Island Rail Road used to run through 3 feet of snow in blizzards with little problem. Today, with high-tech multi-million dollar equipment; computerized signals; etc. every time there's a little rain, the system is all screwed-up; and it comes to a grinding halt for a few inches of snow.

Technology for marketing's sake is even worse!

Sadly, seeing as so many roadies seem to be OCD, and also technophiles.....the companies may be on to something though.......They're [bike companies] like PT Barnum- they know there's a sucker born every 60 seconds.

Alias530

Some CX bikes already have them front and rear, so it'll happen soon for road bikes.

nastystang

Novara Strada 5 disc already has it. Nice bike with TRP twin piston setup. Really want that bike for winter.

CliffordK

So, the through axle has a round hole in the dropouts, and one completely unscrews the QR to remove?

One of the driving forces in the high-end bikes is the bike racing. And, I just don't see the efficiency in a road bike for rapid wheel changes (30 seconds or less?). The "lawyer's tabs" are bad enough.

If it is simply maximizing the size of the QR with an oversized axle, that would be a possibility, but probably not needed either.

Anyway, for the "upgrade" to happen, it will have to:

• Save Weight
• Improve strength
• Improve Performance
• Allow more Carbon Fiber
• Improve rigidity

Anyway, I'm not seeing a lot of positives for the terrain where road bikes are most likely found. Perhaps Cyclocross?

cale

Not this time. Seems that most of the demand for safety devices, both disc brake and thru axle qualify, is being driven by consumers and manufacturers. Helmets met more resistance among pros than consumers too, I recall.

It is harder to screw up the installation of thru axle binders, compared to quick release. I doubt many on this forum need help with their quick release skills but it is a persistent problem for bike manufacturers.

CliffordK

I have found it odd that the entry level bikes often have QR for the front and bolt on for the rear.
With the horizontal dropouts, and especially they "claw", wheel alignment was a pain. Not so much with the vertical dropouts.

When I was tuning a Fuji Ace 24 for my nephew, one of the upgrades was to add QR for the rear.

Anyway the $100 road bikes are still being made with 50 year old technology. They do try to make them pretty in the store, but I just don't see them incorporating cutting edge technology unless it was made dirt cheap.

The $5000 road bikes are being marketed to racers who presumably can install and remove their wheels (no idea why the "lawyer tabs" are popular, they are a big pain.

I'm just not convinced there is a niche for the through axles.

cale

When the bikes with skewers get moved over to thru axles, there wont IMHO, be a niche. It will be an industry-wide move. With disc brakes it is harder to know. I can imagine that anything that qualifies as entry level racing will get disc brakes. Perhaps an option at first but manufacturers hate extra sku's so it'll either quickly jell into a standard or move over to let some other technology take a turn.

Bike industry has to be excited about something and old bikes have long been a problem, a barrier, towards new sales. I can think of worse things than safety to be driving new sales.

bbattle

I very seriously doubt the vast majority of bicycle owners and future owners know or care one whit about through axles.

They will once the wheel removal process is explained to them. "I gotta do WHAT to get the wheel off? That'll take FOREVER."

Grambo

I'm not going to get into an argument regarding the merits of thru axles but other than a pro level racing situation the time required for thru axle wheel removal is a non issue. Assuming you have not filed off your lawyer tabs you already have to loosen your front skewer a handful of turns to get enough skewer clearance to get over the tabs. For a thru axle your talking about just another handful of revolutions which equates to just a few seconds. Even if you have no tabs or are dealing with the rear wheel your only talking about 5 seconds or so difference for wheel removal QR skewer vs. thru axle.

gsa103

Disc brakes naturally try to eject the wheel. The fix is thru axles. QR disc wheels are terrible. The wheel constantly shifts position unless you really lock down the QR. This means that the rotor misaligns and scrapes the caliper.

Thru axles provide guaranteed wheel location and are just plain better. It only takes an extra 5s to remove. After having tried them on my mountain bike, the sooner the better.

Alias530

While I don't disagree that TA's are better, I've never had a wheel shift position on me on my cross bike (disc QR) and I'm 6'6" 240lbs and ride it on trails.