Mountain Bike Quick Release Standards

The width from one face of the hub to the other a k a.

Mountain bike quick release standards.

Old quick release hubs and 142 x 12mm thru axle hubs have the same widths between the hub flanges so there is no change in terms of hub flange positioning and wheel strength and stiffness. The end of the quick release skewer era. Thru axles thread through the wheel hub and circular dropout holes. These were used for many years on mountain bikes using 100mm front and 135mm rear axle spacing i e.

Mountain bike axle standards explained. Quick release skewers are now mostly found on cheaper bikes jonny ashelford immediate media. Again the axle is part of the hub. Which quick release is right for you.

As always there are some exceptions but we will focus on modern axle standards that are supported by pub wheels. Both quick release skewers and thru axles are metal rods that keep bicycle wheels in place. Skewers use a camming mechanism to secure the wheel to u shaped fork dropouts. So the width hasn t changed from quick release wheels on the front.

The long time standard for rear hubs was 135mm width with a 10mm diameter hollow axle and a 5mm quick release. Mountain bikes mostly use a 15x100mm front thru axle and you might still find a few road bikes that adopted that standard early on but 12 100 is more future proof for road. However the latest generation of bolt through mtb forks and frames utilizes larger diameter axles for additional. When choosing a quick release the most important things to note are skewer diameter skewer length materials and cam type.

Then along came thru axles borrowed from mountain bikes where they. If it is a thru axle it would have a ta in the description such as 110ta. This works on frames with open dropouts only. In bicycle nomenclature qr refers to a skewer and ta refers to a thru axle.

Quick release thru axle. Some wheels and forks have swappable end caps or dropout inserts allowing for the use of either. Quick release skewers were a huge innovation for cycling offering fast reliable wheel swaps. A guide to mountain bike axle standards.

For most standard road and mtb bikes the wheel hubs will accommodate standard 5mm skewers. The first crop of disc bikes used quick release with 100mm axle length at the front and either 130mm or 135mm at the rear.