Originally Posted by
john m flores
I never heard that before - maybe you got a defective product. Prior to cassettes, freewheels were used everywhere, from the Tour de France to BikeCentennial in 1976. I haven't heard any chatter about broken axles from the G.1 group that I participate in. And I've ridden some pretty nasty washboard and had no issue.
Freewheels are an inherently weaker design when it comes to the axle. A freewheel has bearings on the NDS are basically under the dropout, but DS bearings are well inside the right dropout. This creates a cantilever effect for the axle on the DS side, and a lot of suspended stress.
I would post a picture that quickly illustrates the difference, but I don't know who originally made the image and don't feel like reading another rant from you about stealing images.