urbanknight

My road bike came with levers on the thru axles and my gravel bike came with allen bolt thru axles. The roadie in me prefers levers, but not enough to go buy them for the gravel bike. But it made me curious what other people prefer and why.

njkayaker

Not really "levers". They are just handles to turn the axle. The Allen socket ones have removable "handles" (the Allen wrench).

The Allen socket ones are a bit lighter and cleaner looking. You might already be carrying the Allen wrench.

Beyond that, there doesn't seem to be any important difference.

mercator

Huh. A friend of mine just bought a Giant e-bike and brought it over so I could show him how to get the wheels off. (he is too old to use utube I guess).
It has a lever on the rear wheel with a recommended torque of 5.5Nm and an allan bolt on the front with a recommended torque of 13Nm
I got the torque wrench out and snugged it up to 11Nm, but even that seemed to be more than he would be able to handle with a basic multitool.

To answer the question - I would prefer the levers.

Eric F 

I have levers front and rear on my gravel bike, and lever front/bolt rear on my MTB. I prefer a lever on the front primarily because I put my bikes in my car sometimes, and I don't like needing to use an extra tool to get the wheel on and off. IMO, the lever on the rear is less critical. Usually, the only time I take off the rear wheel is when I'm working on the bike in my garage.

shelbyfv

I'd prefer a lever on the front for ease of transport, but.... On the first bike I had with thru axles, the TA was weird in that it would only fold flat in a particular configuration. That restricted how much I could tighten it. It annoyed me and I replaced it with a nice RAP. My current bike has hex, so I double checked that the proper size is included in my multi-tool.

jaxgtr

My Domane came with the removable handle on the thru axle, I did not ride with it on, I have a multitool I carry that I can use if I need to remove the wheel on the road. However, I replaced the stock with Robert Axle Project Thru Axles and they do not have handles.

** edited that I only had one handle, not two.

MoAlpha

The "levers" on both of my disc bikes can turn the axle or spin free depending on position. They have a cam at the base, like some QR levers, which clamps a washer onto the dropout and tensions the whole thing so it won't rotate loose.

urbanknight

Sorry, look what I started. I just said lever for lack of a better word, but it does indeed sound like “handle” should have actually been a better word.

I do indeed have that size allen in my seat bag already, and I guess most reasons to remove the wheel would come hand in hand with reasons to access my tools anyway.

biker128pedal

Wait you got two handles levers. I only got one. I just keep it on the front.

I use it regularly to remove the front wheel when carrying the bike in the back of the Tucson.

jaxgtr

Ooops, yea that makes it sound a whole lot different. No, I only got one.

Koyote

Levers are quicker, hence useful for dealing with issues (e.g., punctures that don't seal) out on the road; Allen bolts will take a little longer to remove, but are a bit lighter and cleaner looking.

I've actually got one of each on the same bike, and don't really have a preference.

t2p

not a fan of thru axles with a lever

one of the first things I did to my Slate was to replace the OEM Formula rear axle with lever (89 g) with a Robert Axle Project axle (38 g) for a 51 g reduction

Koyote

I think the first things I'd do would involve the dork disc and the reflector.

veganbikes

I like a bolt on thru-axle personally I don't mind using hex wrenches and would rather have that so that I carry tools. On my Fox fork I have a QR Thru-Axle and while I don't like it apparently the floating properties of it cause issues when removing a wheel and you have to do some stuff and add to that they changed the specs from the previous year so finding a bolt on that would work is difficult. I like a nice clean look personally but in the end either are fine.

Also Technically Allen was a registered trademark of Allen Manufacturing but I think the company that bought them has since discontinued the line so not sure what they are doing with the TM?

Camilo

My bike came with lever TAs front and rear. I kept getting a front rotor rub when going hard (and I'm neither big nor strong), which I couldn't get rid of. I replaced that TA with a hex one (Roberts, it turns out), and the issue went away. I can't tell you why. I believe was tightening the lever axle tight enough. I might swap the lever TA back on to see what happens. I haven't had the problem with the rear lever TA so didn't swap that one. Given that I'm more likelly to get a rear flat, I think that the lever back there will be adventageous. I do carry a multi tool with the right hex key for the front, fwiw.

urbanknight

Mine with the handle also have an allen bolt inside them, so I install them with the torque wrench, then note the position of the handle so I know where to tighten it to should I need to do it out on the road.

Leisesturm

It would be funny if it weren't so sad: for decades bikes have had q/r front and rear, and tire removal/re-installation was a no brainer. You are seriously telling me that in the 21st Century, cyclists once again need a (allen) wrench to remove wheels, like in the (bad) old days of threaded axles? Just say it ain't so!

Camilo

I'll check that out!

t2p

agree - reflector (20 g) was also removed

dork disc survived and remains - even thought cassette was replaced (with 1195 X Dome cassette)

dork disc remains primarily to aggravate a riding friend ... long live the dork disc lol

Camilo

There are (were?) issues with QR and discs, where, as I understand it, the contact point of the braking on the disc could cause the axle to loosen or even eject from the dropout. Partially from the forces from the brakes near the axle as opposed to the rim, and partially from the QRs not being strong enough or applied strong enough. That's just what I've read; no personal experience except with more current disc/QR designs (see below)

FWIW, I just bought some inexpensive gravel bikes for my wife and me to use as permanent fixtures in our out of state travel trailer so we didn't have to schlep the "good** bikes" back and forth, plus less worry about theft and mainly to get all mechanical systems vs. electronic shifting and hydraulics that we have on the good bikes. Being far from home in rural areas, I just like the idea of mechanical, easily fixable or replaceable supplies and parts. No need to have brake bleeding stuff on hand either.

Anyway, these bikes have mechanical discs and QR axles. The front drop outs are slanted so that the force of the braking at the disc actually forces the axle further into drop out, rather than trying to eject it. Plus they came with good solid internal cam QRs. Haven't used the bikes a whole heck of a lot, but so far the braking is fine, and it seems to me that the engineering of the drop outs is appropriate for discs.

** As I'm sure most of you would expect, our inexpensive bikes work perfectly well. They are from reputable makers: Salsa Journeyer, with Shimano Claris 8 speed 2X on one and Microshift Advent 9 speed 1X on the other. The frames are fine quality as far as I can tell, if not super light. Shifting is functionally perfect, and the braking, while maybe not as easy physically as hydraulics, is also just fine for our recreational, non technical riding, certainly on par with good canti or linear pull/V brakes. The inexpensive bikes, cost about 20% of what are good ones cost. I'd probably be perfectly happy with them if I weren't such a bike snob (I do love the weight, handling and functionality of the more expensive stuff.... to a point.)

As for groups: I ordered my wife's bike with the Claris 2X because it does came stock with a slightly lower gear. I ordered mine with Microshift 1X because (1) I wanted to try Microshift (verdict: really, really like the controls, even better than my previous favorite, Sram. And the shifting is right on. (2) wanted to try 1X - which I also like except this particular group could stand a couple gears lower for me, being old and weak, and the high gear needs to be higher too. So it's OK, but needs something on both ends for my usage. I think for general use, I'll stick with 2X that is on all of my other road and gravel bikes.

tomato coupe

It’s still a no-brainer … at least, for most of us.

PeteHski

All my bikes have hand levers/handles or whatever to unscrew the TA without tools. I prefer that method to using an Allen key, but it is no big deal either way. Interestingly, my Canyon mtb TA levers actually fold and push into the centre of the axle when not in use - which is quite neat. My Canyon and Giant road bike levers are more conventional, with the usual lever and ratchet for orientation.

PeteHski

It takes maybe 10 seconds longer to remove a wheel with an Allen key vs QR and maybe only 1 second longer if your TA has a hand lever. I could do a video to show you how trivially easy it is, but I can't be arsed.

noimagination

Hmmm, seems more like user error, to me. We (my wife and I) have been riding a tandem with disks and QR axles for about 10 years, and I have the front wheel on and off frequently to get it on the rack. I've never had a problem with the axle loosening under braking. The dropouts are standard vertical, not the forward facing ones (front).

However, I am looking forward to my new (single) bike, which will have disk brakes and a through axle, because I have noticed a little bit of fork flex/chatter during braking on the tandem. (It's noticeable, but not annoying and certainly not dangerous.) Supposedly one of the advantages of the through axle set-up is that it reduces/eliminates fork flex under braking.

shelbyfv

^^^ It may depend on the fork. I had a mtb 20 years ago with a suspension fork and QR/disc. Almost every time I removed the wheel for transport I would have to fiddle the brake. IIRC, not an uncommon complaint at the time. Maybe the fork was too flexy to be consistent? Anyway, increasingly irrelevant as only lower end bikes now come with QR/disc and I expect they'll be gone when mfgs use up what they've contracted for.