Are there alternatives? The splines that engage the lever to tighten/ undo must be made of cheese!

The stealth (bolt-in) replacement from Rockshox works great. THere are some other bolt-ins available too. I can’t say I’ve ever missed the lever- every time I want to take a wheel out, I have tools to hand

Brand-X have a range on CRC depending on what length / thread pitch you need.

I just bought a brand x one for my cross bike- same thread as RockShox so tried it there too. Seems perfectly functional, has me thinking about another.

If you can wait 10 days for it to arrive from China : £7.Boost.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/15X110-Bicycle-Front-Fork-Thru-Axle-Skewer-Mountain-Road-Bike-Frame-for-RockShox/192947698613?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Works fine!

You do need to be a bit careful with the stealth ones – I manage to round one out and I wouldn’t class myself as that ham fisted. I religiously use a torque wrench now to tighten it towards the lower end of the torque scale printed on it.

They are better than the original maxles though with the lip that’s easy to round off / bend in a lot of people’s experience (I’ve not had that issue though).

Burgtec ones can be unscrewed from either side. Lots of colours.

I think oneup have just released some stealth maxles too.

joebristol
Subscriber

They are better than the original maxles though with the lip that’s easy to round off / bend in a lot of people’s experience (I’ve not had that issue though).

Basically the old maxle was fairly easy to damage through carelessness, so they replaced it with a new design that just breaks through fatigue instead. Yay!