Ok, new to thru-axle wheels here, just got a bike with thru-axles.
Took me seemingly forever to get the rear wheel back in due to the thru-axle (whereas it takes me seconds on a old-school QR wheel).
Can someone clarify the fastest/best way to get that wheel in quickly? Or point to a video/link that makes it clear how to do this, say, on the roadside if you flat in the wild.
THx
I’m with you on this one. I was told to move up a few cogs from the old norm of putting it in small-small for a wheel change.
It’s confusing as well with DI2 because often you can’t go small frontring-small rear-ring; it avoids that combo so you’re stuck with big front-small rear which is even more annoying due to chain stretch.
I too am interested in this – best practices for removing and installing rear wheel “in the field.” My new Canyon Speedmax has rear-facing horizontal dropouts which seem particularly challenging (also Di2 full synchro). Have been just using one finger to pull the chain back as far as possible, but it’s very awkward and has been a delicate balance to avoid losing a finger.
Yes, put the chain in the middle of the rear cassette and the smaller front chain ring.
What part is giving you the most trouble? Only my MTB is thru axle rear but to expedite on off, I shift the bike to the smallest cog, which from reading the other comments you might not be able to do. If that’s the case then just go to the smallest cog possible and remember which one it is. Hold up the rear end of the bike by the rear deraiilleur and rotate it (the der.) clockwise as facing the right side of the bike. Don’t worry about the hanger, unless you drop the bike on it everything will be fine. This should allow you to guide the wheel in relatively easily, line up the chain on the correct cog and lower the rear of the bike down to get the hub caps set into the frame dropouts. For me this is where my problems start…my dropouts don’t align exactly so I have to jiggle the wheel a bit the get the thru axle through and into the threads.
I guess I just suck at it, since I’m new to it. I pretty much do that, get the chain onto the cog its shifted to, but it’s super annoying to hold the wheel in the correct seated position while simultaneously trying to slide in the thru-axle. I drop either the wheel or the bike like 9/10 times, and get it on the 10th.
A long time ago my wife bought me a used bike stand as a gift. A bike stand makes something like this way easier. It seems your problems are very compounded by trying to hold and balance the bike. Granted if you flat in a race you’ll be dealing with this, but for routine work a bike stand is invaluable.
In actually have and use one.
I see how it could be better but it’s
Still hard to hold that wheel while you slide in the thru axle. Not impossible but many more failures before inger or
Yes, thanks those tips help - I worked on it again this morning while swapping out my latex tubes and that’s almost exactly what I end up doing.
I found at least for now, that the key thing for me is to know exactly which rear cog to put the chain back on, as with the Di2 shift, you can’t be in small front-small-rear rings, so you’ll have to settle for a middleish ring in back - if you get that right it seems to line up with the disc rotors so you can actually slot it in correctly.
Great job! Practice makes perfect. A Zwift type trainer will make you a pro at reinstalling the rear wheel.