Ever since I got my Marzocchi All-Mountain 1, I’ve always felt the front end had quite a bit of play when going through the rough stuff, especially compared to how solid 20mm forks feel. One day, while surfing the various bike websites, I found out that Hadley offered a 9mm thru-axle conversion for their front hubs. This route would obviously be much more inexpensive than buying a new 20mm fork and getting a new wheel built.
So now instead of a standard 5mm quick release, I have a bolt-on 9mm thru-axle up front. My preliminary conclusion is that the front end definitely feels much stiffer. I’m not getting any of that disc rotor shimmy when you usually take a hard corner and it feels like the bike definitely holds the line much better through the rough stuff.
Installation
Installation is very easy. All you need are two 18mm cone wrenches (or a normal low profile wrench will do). Hold one end and turn the other end counter-clockwise to loosen. Eventually, both ends will become loose enough and you can slide both sides out. To install the new one, just reverse the procedure.
Pictures
Hadley front hub with quick-release axle
Hadley front hub with new 9mm thru-axle installed.
Pic of the thru-axle.
Pic of the new converted hub installed on the All-Mountain 1.
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