School me on 'thru-axles'

curium

Just seen over on cyclingnews that the new Trek Domane disc will have thru-axles.

I've had a quick google and some people are saying that thru-axles prevent the front wheel being ripped out of the drop-out under hard breaking. Can't say I've ever heard of this but that doesn't make it false.

Anyone knowledgable on thru-axles? Is it going to become the standard as we move to discs on road bikes and what are the pluses and minuses?

Cheers!

DCDB

AngryAsian did a nice summary here:

http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/article/angryasian-bring-on-the-thru-axles-40005/

curium

DCDB wrote:

AngryAsian did a nice summary here:

http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/article/angryasian-bring-on-the-thru-axles-40005/

Brilliant. Thanks

mr_evil

There certainly have been reported cases of wheels falling off under braking. This is unlikely to happen with newer forks because they have forward-angled dropouts and pouty "lawyer lips". Of course those features slow down wheel changes, negating the biggest advantage that QRs have over thru-axles. Thus I expect thru-axles to become standard for front wheels on road bikes with disc brakes. There's less advantage on the rear wheel, but I predict that they will still become standard there too.

Monty Dog

If someone is dumb enough not to be able to use a QR correctly, then Darwinian principles dictate they should bear the consequences. ;-) The last thing road bikes need is through-axles, it's just another scam dreamt up by marketers to create built-in obsolescence - first we'll have 15mm and then 5 years later it will be 20mm because 15mm wasn't still enough. I've been riding disc brakes on an untabbed rigid fork for 10 years - never had a problem