Originally Posted by
Dave Mayer
You don't need discs to run fat tires such as 32mm+. My 'cross bikes with V-brakes can easily handle these tires. TRP 8.4 rim brakes offer outstanding modulation and stopping power, and are compatible with road brake levers.
Thru-axles - I forgot to mention what a fussy time-consuming PITA these are. With standard quick-release wheels, you flip the lever, and the wheel drops out, just like Tullio Campagnolo meant it to happen. That is, after you do a little grinding on the lawyer tabs, which the industry was forced to adopt due to ambulance-chasing lawyers, and the broad industry conclusion that the riding public is incompetent.
To be clear, thru-axles are not axles, they do not bear rider forces, nor do bearings rotate around them. They are strictly wheel retention devices, which actually generate LESS axial wheel retention force than a standard QR lever when properly applied. I have never experienced a situation when a QR-equipped wheel shifted due to inadequate clamping forces.
This is how the sorry bike industry got to thru-axles:
- 1930's: Tullio Campagnolo's great invention
- 1980's: somebody hurt themselves using a QR wheel. Legal mayhem follows. Obviously in the US.
- 1980's: Butt-covering: lawyer tabs or 'wheel retention' tabs installed on all bikes, first in the US, and then the rest of the world caves in.
- 1980's onwards: now riders no longer attach wheels by clamping the QR, but they spin the QR lever. This results in inadequate retention forces.
- 1990's: discs take over MTBs, and discs eject front wheels due to extra braking forces at the fork ends. If users clamped their QR properly, then this would not be an issue.
- 2010's onward: The bike industry gives up on the assumption that users can figure out a QR when applied to discs. So an utterly foolproof system is needed: the thru-axle. This allows users to spin the lever to attach the wheel (like they were doing inappropriately with the QR).
- Onward: this has now spawned a chaos of incompatibility in the industry. Plus wheel changes are glacial.
Summary: a litany of legal butt-covering and incompetence.
That may not be entirely true. Modern rear hubs, that in load placement resembles old school free wheel hubs, may indeed benefit from a thick wall through axle bolt to internally support the hub axle and prevent it from bending.