Using a skewer with thru axle road bike

General Discussion
1

Hi,
Just got a tacx blue-matic turbo trainer as my first indoor trainer. My road bike uses thru axles for both front and rear wheels. I have just installed the bike to the indoor trainer using the provided skewer and did a 32k ride this morning. I was checking for an adapter but it seems quite difficult to find one or the ones I found are quite expensive. Do you think it’s dangerous to use the skewer with the thru axle and whether it would create stability issues along the road or come off the trainer eventually?

2

Your freewheel/hub are designed to have the thru-axle provide support to the 4/5 bearings which then provides the rigidness for the rear triangle. Without the support and with power on the drive-train, you will destroy both very quickly as the bearings will have nothing to rest on (they will collapse where the freewheel joins the hub and quite likely do other damage potentially to rear mech, spokes etc. Dont do it.

A friend waited 2 months to get his hands on the right Tacx axle for his daughters blue-matic - hard to get it seems.

3

Thank you Dean. Do you think using an ordinary qr to thru axle adapter would fix it?

4

Only if you can find one that supports all bearings in the hub and freewheel, but I would imagine you would have more luck sourcing the correct Tacx thru-axle. If you find one, post a link and I can have a look.

5

Hi Dean,

Thanks. This is the only thing I could find that looks like might do the job. Let me know what you think?
Unfortunately I cannot add links or screenshots but I found this from Garmin:

  • T1709 E-Thru adapter X-12 (>142 mm) - suitable for hubs with axle skewer 142 × 12 mm.

And bike’s rear hub is:
Vitus KT

M4ZR, 142mm x 12mm Thru-Axle, Shimano 10spd Freehub, 6-bolt

6

Yeah that looks like right @Ali_Yildirim but the caveat being that it depends on your bike. It looks like a Tacx not Garmin and I note Tacx put out a few different versions but I cant find anything that would suggest its wrong. Are you in a position to ask the LBS that you bought the trainer from (or your bike)? My friend who was in the same position ended up taking in his bike’s axle to the LBS and made them figure out the right one - those axles come in different lengths and pitches so you might get caught out.

I get really annoyed with bike standards - everyone has their own version of them. Arrrgh

7

Thank you Dean! I have figured that I need a 14x12 axle with 1.5 thread but those aren’t available anywhere. Also regarding the adapter I don’t have much hope for it but I have ordered one from Amazon. I will report back on whether it works or not. I thought the same but also thought that going back to the retailer would be bit of a waste of time or I might get the wrong advice. Thanks again.

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