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Big dumb question

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
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May 23, 2002
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From a big dumb guy.

On my road bike, I have QR wheels. They are not convertible to thru axle.

I am thinking of upgrading my frame, and there is a good deal on one that has 9/10mm thru axles. This makes it wholly outdated from the current 12mm axle norm. It also makes it more difficult compared to finding QR wheelsets.

Can I drill out my hub endcaps to accept 10 or 9mm thru axles and use my current wheelset, supposing the internal axle will pass the thru axle through it? I suppose if I fail, I can simply replace the end caps.

Here's an example:

 

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
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what wheels/hubs do you currently have? in theory yes it would work though. are both fork and frame thru axle?

i checked problem solvers, they don't make what you're looking for.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
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May 23, 2002
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I don't think anybody does. I have novatec hubs, d711/712sb, which are QR only. I knew that going in, but the price on the wheels was exceptional and I had no idea what the industry would settle on in the road world.

The bike (potential) bike is a Storck Scenero from Backcountry. It's a 9mm front and 10mm rear thru axled bike. There are legitimate ways of conversion out there- a DT swiss hubset would be the obvious way to go, but there are also options to convert 12 and 15mm axle down to 10 and 9. In either of those instances, I'd have to swap wheelsets or at minimum hubs, so drilling out endcaps is a relatively cheap experiment.

Of course selling my bike and starting over is also an option, but hey
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
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May 23, 2002
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nice, thanks for that. Is that the front or rear axle? 10mm ID will fit a 9mm tru, but it probably won't fit a 10mm (rear) axle.

I'm probably better off not doing this at all, I can recognize that, but now I'm just trying to figure out if I can!
 

jonKranked

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Nov 10, 2005
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if you're gonna go the route of drilling end caps, you may also want to consider having someone experienced turn you out a proper set of end caps on a lathe for the application (so everything is properly toleranced and centered), personally i'd recommend this over just trying to drill it yourself. if you wanna go this route, i know someone up your way that runs a machine shop and has experience with bike components. i can put you in touch if you're interested.
 

6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
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I think I looked at that Storck frame early this year while deciding on a new road bike, but discounted it because of the outdated wheel setup as I needed new disc wheels for the new bike too.

I guess it depends on the internal axle ID of your current hubs if they can support the 9 and 10mm axles.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
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May 23, 2002
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Yeah, after looking at it, the snorck is also from 2015. While not super old, the tech has certainly progressed since then. I just liked the idea of being able to scoop up a 2700$ frame for 700 bucks. Especially if I can angle grind my wheels to fit
 

jonKranked

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Yeah, after looking at it, the snorck is also from 2015. While not super old, the tech has certainly progressed since then. I just liked the idea of being able to scoop up a 2700$ frame for 700 bucks. Especially if I can angle grind my wheels to fit
that's a great deal, i won't argue that. but i'm kinda in the same boat. i went through that with my cx bike and my scott, and its like "oh here's a good deal" but then there's other stuff i'd need, and it starts to snowball. in the case of the scott i was looking at getting thru axle lowers for the fork, then i'd need to do a similar mod for my hub, then it was ok well i could thru axle the rear too, but it quickly got to the point that i'd spend more on these upgrades than i already have into the bike, and that's money i'd rather put into a new bike.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
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May 23, 2002
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Yeah, I also would largely need a new drivetrain as well, so it's probably wiser to buy complete and deal with wheels later, rather than trying to bring my brakes and wheels and crank over, then new everything else.

Now the question is weird allez sprint or weird titanium lynskey
 
Here is some more data on the dimensions of the D711SB front hub:

http://www.nguide.eu/faq/hub-d711sb-vs-d771sb
that makes it come across as they don't recommend using the other end caps because they can fall off if the wheel is off the bike. isn't that every other normal 20mm front hub out there? i'd buy the end caps and try. if it doesn't work, your just out the cost of the end caps. and you can see in the video, the axle is plenty big enough
 
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6thElement

Schrodinger's Immigrant
Jul 29, 2008
15,825
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I avoided that Storck and instead managed to snag a prior years iteration of a BNIB Cervelo frame from ebay for less than 30% of retail cost. Then with a set of lightbicycle wheels on DT240 hubs and ebay procured clearance SRAM Red Etap groupset I put together my entire new roadie for sub $4k which would have been $9k retail for the same build.