Mountain Bike Thru Axle Vs Quick Release

Skewers use a camming mechanism to secure the wheel to u shaped fork dropouts.

Mountain bike thru axle vs quick release.

Both quick release skewers and thru axles are metal rods that keep bicycle wheels in place. I imagine over the next 10 years most manufacturers will switch to thru axles even on lower end bikes. Early cyclocross bikes borrowed the 15mm front thru axle diameter but as disc brakes became more common on drop bar bikes they all standardized to 12mm. The quick release standard for disc rears is to have the dropouts 135mm apart with 10mm diameter dropouts.

The decision on the rear gets a bit murkier. When mountain bikes first went to thru axles the standard was 12 142 which was the same effective width as the quick release hubs they replaced. Thru axles work better to keep wheels attached to the bike. Thru axles thread through the wheel hub and circular dropout holes.

Thru axles are more modern these days most mid range to high end road touring and mountain bikes come with thru axles instead of quick release. While my current road disc bike has quick release front and back and they work just grand if i was getting a new disc bike road cross or mountain it would definitely be a thru axle front. Currently the most widely used axle on bicycles is the 9mm quick release or qr skewer. You may recognize it from such activities as taking your front wheel off to put your bike in your car or locking the back wheel into a mag or fluid trainer.

If you like to use the newest and most modern cycling equipment thru axles are a good choice. My mountain bike uses a quick release rigid fork and i will be shopping for parts at a bike part swap in a couple weeks. Thru axles are also inserted through a hollow hub axle but they re bigger rear ones are 12mm in diameter and screw into closed dropouts.