Mountain Bike Thru Axle Vs Quick Release

Currently the most widely used axle on bicycles is the 9mm quick release or qr skewer.

Mountain bike thru axle vs quick release.

At first 135mm was the most common rear axle spacing. This popularity is changing though as more bikes are coming standard with wider thru axle designs. The quick release standard for disc rears is to have the dropouts 135mm apart with 10mm diameter dropouts. I may be looking for a suspension fork and some may be thru axle but want to use my current wheels on it.

If you like to use the newest and most modern cycling equipment thru axles are a good choice. Thru axles work better to keep wheels attached to the bike. Thru axles thread through the wheel hub and circular dropout holes. The decision on the rear gets a bit murkier.

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. 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. 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. I imagine over the next 10 years most manufacturers will switch to thru axles even on lower end bikes.

Both quick release skewers and thru axles are metal rods that keep bicycle wheels in place. 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. Skewers use a camming mechanism to secure the wheel to u shaped fork dropouts.