I’m not a big fan of the recent trend of tooled axles in all bikes. It has a place, but most of the time it’s a nuisance. They look clean. They are slightly lighter. But that’s really not everything when it comes to the use value of a bicycle.
In real use most road going bikes will often need to be loaded into the back of a car. A tooled axle makes that suck. A QR axle makes that easy and quick. On a trail or in a shop, wheels need to be removed often to fix flats or work on the bike and constantly turning a 5mm or 6mm aluminum hex takes a toll on the part and slows things down.
On my recent all-road bike, it put it together with tooled axles. They looked clean for the photos, they’re trending, and I had them on hand. For the carbon fork, it came with that style axle so I didn’t have much choice. As I’ve used the bike a bunch and been angered several times for having to tool a wheel change, I finally got my act together to make a front QR axle so I can easily remove the wheel.
The stock tooled axle of the Dedacciai axle from the F-56 DB fork is 124.50 mm under the cap. To make a QR, I’d have to cut from a 129.00 mm SK4002: PMW Combo Head (110 x M12 x 1.5, Integral Thread, Front). 4.50mm cut from the lever end and threaded M8x1.25mm about 12mm deep for a DT RWS head.
If I were to just order a PMW DT019 110×12 QR, I would still need to trim 6.5mm from it. PMW DT020 100×12 QR is 3.5mm too short.
