Can anyone advise me as slightly confused. I want to get wheels that are thru axles so have been advised to get a conversion kit. These kits are coming in at almost £30.00 each wheel, that means another £60.oo (yes I have A level maths)
Will my present forks take a thru axle and what do I need to do?

Depends entirely on what dropouts your forks have. We need more information…

We need to know what forks you have. If they are QR then nope.

Forks are axle specific and come with the only one that fits them.

well you both seem to have answered that little piece of confusion. They are QR only front and back. Are these so called kits easy to fit or use?

There aren’t any kits to convert qr dropouts to thru-axles. If you’re particularly hands on you might be able to swap the fork lowers for a thru axle version but there’s nothing you can do for the rear.

Apart from buy a new frame of course!

The kits are just adapters for the wheel.

Unless you frame has changeable dropouts, which it sounds like it doesn’t, you can’t change them anyway.

Your forks can’t be changed unless you bought new lowers.

there’s nothing you can do for the rear.

Apart from buy a new frame of course!

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/de/en/sun-ringle-rear-conversion-axle-2013/rp-prod65450

You can get the same sort of thing for the front as well.

The question is why do you want to? Unless you plan on changing your bike sometime soon, then it is pointless.
Or get some hope hubs (or other) that can be converted to different axle standards.

But that does nothing to the frame, if you have a rear hub that is 135×12 it just means you can run it on normal QR.

You can use through axles with qr (10mm) dropouts.

100 x 9 and 135 x 10 will both fit standard dropouts. You need to convert your hubs though. Hope and DT both support.

Here

Superstar do a much cheaper axle.

MSP I stand corrected! Although I can’t help but think that that isn’t anything more than a stand in whilst you save for a new frame 😉

forks will either be 20mm,15mm or standard 9mmqr

if they are standard qr and tou can convert your hubs to 9mm thru axel you can use dt swiss rws ones

or something like these
http://superstar.tibolts.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=286

the rear will either be 142x 12mm or if standard 135mm qr you can convert the hub to a 10mmthru axel and run an rws rear or one of these
http://superstar.tibolts.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=287

i think they help stiffen up a flexy fork, less noticeable on the rear unless you have a flexy rear sus and/or you are fat/agressive rider 😉

if you tell us what hubs, frame forks etc can be more specific