Mountain Bike Quick Release Standards

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.

Mountain bike quick release standards.

For most standard road and mtb bikes the wheel hubs will accommodate standard 5mm skewers. If it is a thru axle it would have a ta in the description such as 110ta. Mountain bike axle standards explained. Skewers use a camming mechanism to secure the wheel to u shaped fork dropouts.

The first crop of disc bikes used quick release with 100mm axle length at the front and either 130mm or 135mm at the rear. The width from one face of the hub to the other a k a. Quick release thru axle. Many bikes sold still use frames with open dropouts.

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. A guide to mountain bike axle standards. The long time standard for rear hubs was 135mm width with a 10mm diameter hollow axle and a 5mm quick release.

Which quick release is right for you. Again the axle is part of the hub. These were used for many years on mountain bikes using 100mm front and 135mm rear axle spacing i e. So the width hasn t changed from quick release wheels on the front.

The end of the quick release skewer era. Some wheels and forks have swappable end caps or dropout inserts allowing for the use of either. As always there are some exceptions but we will focus on modern axle standards that are supported by pub wheels. Quick release skewers were a huge innovation for cycling offering fast reliable wheel swaps.

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. In bicycle nomenclature qr refers to a skewer and ta refers to a thru axle. Traditionally frames and forks had slotted dropouts. However the latest generation of bolt through mtb forks and frames utilizes larger diameter axles for additional.

Both quick release skewers and thru axles are metal rods that keep bicycle wheels in place. Thru axles work better to keep wheels attached to the bike.