Judging by the comments from bike mag reviews a tapered steerer and maxle make a massive difference to the ride of a bike, improved tracking accuracy, less flex etc.. Has anyone switched and noticed a real difference ? or is it a case of marketing hype ?

not hype, much stiffer, if you notice those things.

single crown sus forks are not a stiff design to start with so any help they can get is a good thing.

How ever did we manage for all those years until the marketing men designers came along and saved us with their next great thing?

I’ve not switched between tapered and 1 1/8th – but there’s a marked improvement in stiffness between a 15/20mm axle and a QR.

My original OE Revs were std steerer and qr axle. Inspired by my other bike which has a 20mm thru axle and std steerer I swapped the Revs for tapered steerer and 20mm thru axle Revs would never go back the difference is like working and non-working

It feels great to have the front wheel go (and stay) exactly where you point it instead of having to continuously (& subconsciously) make corrections.

How ever did we manage for all those years until the marketing men designers came along and saved us with their next great thing?

: ) we were riding rigid steel bikes with 7 gears and canti brakes weren’t we, they were fine all along. Who needs anything more?

Actually, I was happy enough with them .. my current bikes aren’t that far advanced.

Judging by the comments from bike mag reviews a tapered steerer and maxle make a massive difference

Mag reviews say a lot of things without saying that much at all

To give a proper answer from my experience, I’ve ridden the same fork from the same model year with both QR and 20mm, I noticed bugger all difference.

Is there a frame where the single difference is a switch from 1 1/8 to tapered?

: ) we were riding rigid steel bikes with 7 gears and canti brakes weren’t we, they were fine all along. Who needs anything more?

…and the advantage was that you could find the gnar on a flat muddy bridleway down the side of a field. Ah, them was the days!

Exactly.. !

I guess that’s partly the point, if you ride anywhere rough and fast enough, riding hard enough, the differences are there. Some will notice them, some won’t even if they ride the same, like any other change that’s not a fundemental re-design. Riding easy XC terrain at a leisurely pace, it’ll make no real difference to anyone.

I went from a 1 1/8″ steerer on my lyriks to tapered, i noticed a difference. But I ride DH and freeride on that bike, so it’s noticeable. I ride trail on that bike too, surprisingly i notice the increase in stiffness the most whilst climbing, though i’m a out of the saddle climbing kind of person.

As for qr vs big axle, there is no question there’s a big difference.

As suggested previously, the difference you get out is based on what you put in.

I had someone tell me they could really feel the difference in stiffness from my tapered steerer, even though my forks don’t have one- tapered head tube, standard steerer.

What I find is that sure, I can usually tell a difference but it doesn’t often make a difference. My Lyriks are a lot stiffer than my revelations but I don’t jump on the Rev-bike and think “Wow, these are bendy”- I just get used to it almost immediately then get on with it. There’s not that many forks out there that are outright flexy these days, and stiff enough is stiff enough.

it’s quite hard to compare like-for-like, I found a prety solid difference between my 426 QR Revelations and my 426 maxle Revs… But then they had lots of other changes in the chassis besides the axle. Likewise a mate compared his QR 32s with my Revs and was shocked by the difference but that’s nothing to do with the 20mm axle, it’s just that 150mm 32s are relatively bendy no matter the axle.

I changed the lowers on my forks from qr to qr15 and there was a massive difference IMHO, better tracking, less deflection etc, etc.

I certainly wouldn’t go back to standard qr, looking forward to trying a bike with a tapered head tube too.

on one bike I switched 1 1/8th to 1.5 to tapered. (36mm stantions)
1 1/8th -> 1.5 Mahooooooosiff difference
1.5 -> taper – not so much

on the other bike, a 1 1/8th 150mm 32mm fork with a 20mm axle, steers lovely and taught, tracks over big bumps nicer than the 140mm 32 QR it replaced. still vibrates front to back under heavy braking tho. :/

I thought the tapered steerer was *supposed to be* better because it gave a larger head tube, therefore a bigger weld area allowing a larger dia. down tube?

Thanks for all the replies… looks like the conscensus is that a through axle will make a big difference but the tapered steerer improvement is less apparent