This topic may have already been widely discussed however I ride a Salsa Spearfish with QR rear dropouts and I am keen to stiffen up the rear end. The thinking is to convert my Hope Pro II hub from QR to a through axle and I understand that there are two options:

1. 10mm Bolt IN like this….
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/hope-pro-2-conversion-kit-rear-10mm-bolt-in/rp-prod11825

2. 10mm Through Axle like this….
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/hope-pro-2-conversion-kit-rear-10mm-thru/rp-prod18761

I understand that with option 2 I will also need a 10mm through axle something like this:
http://superstar.tibolts.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=287

Questions for your wisdom please….
– Are both of the above options compatible with rear QR drop out?
– Is one of the two options stiffer than the other?
– Is it worth it?
– Any product recommendations.

Thanks.

Both will work… I couldn’t tell any difference between the two tbh, then I could barely tell any difference between 10mm and QR, I’ve got a reasonably stiff bike so maybe it hides it, or maybe I’m just not princess-and-pea enough. Never been that stressed about stiffness.

I liked the bolt-in with Hope, it’s pretty light and it’s got 2 points of engagement so the wheel seems more secure. Obviously no QR but never was a problem.

I had the hope bolt in on my heckler, quickly swapped to bolt through as the allen bolts would regularly come loose. Plus the bolt thread on dropout has caused some hefty scratches.

Bolt through every time from now on.

Afraid I’ve never had a qr rear wheel in it to compare.

Whether of not you can spot an increase in stiffness from a rear through axle will have more to do with where the pivot points on your rear suspension system are. Stiffening up one end when the flex is in the middle is never going to give you good returns.

bolt through + dt swiss rws axle. it is a thing of beauty if you can stomach the £25 cost.

I have a bolt thru on a superstar hub and using the superstar skewer, on a hardtial. Defintiely notice the increased stiffness and would recommend, although the skewer axle material is cheap and suffered surface rust quickly Dt swiss probably worth the extra. Very secure but still easy to remove with no hassle.

I use the bolt though kit on pro2evo, in conjunction with that superstar axle that you’ve linked.

I fitted it initially on my meta 5 with (previous gen) pro2 hub, about four years ago, specifically to stiffen up the back end. It worked well and I was very happy with it.
Moved it onto a Five for two years and it was faultless on that. When I eventually destroyed the wheel and replaced with the newer pro2evo (which is a different adaptor to that for the original pro2), I went for 10mm bolt-thru adapters again and kept the original SS axle.
Never ran anything else except 10mm bolt-thu on that bike so can’t say if it made the Five any stiffer or not.
Same bits now reside on my 456ti, not that it will make any difference to the stiffness of a hardtail but just because it’s a bulletproof bit of kit. Heavy but you ain’t going to break it.

Many thanks for the replies, very helpful.

I did this on my old Blur 4X and as Scienceofficer says, I reckon a lot of it is where your pivots are. The Blur was a solid rear triangle so I don’t think the 10mm axle made any noticeable difference. On something with a pivot near the dropout (like a Spearfish?) I reckon you might be able to feel more of a difference as (I think) you would on something with a single beam type swingarm (a’la Meta/Five, maybe a Heckler to some extent etc).

At the end of the day, its a pretty cheap experiment even if you can’t feel any change.

The difference in stiffness between a QR and 12mm (10mm step-down for dropouts) is noticeable on a Patriot.