For everyone who's said they've "never heard of that before"

[Julesh]

I've broken two rear QR axles on cheap wheels, usually because of 15kg of small child in a bike seat right over the back wheel in combination with my own weight. Not a problem in either case as hollow axles stay held together by the QR spindles and don't fail catastrophically like solid nutted axles.

 

[MrJamie]

In twenty+ years of cycle shop work I never saw a snapped front axle.

One of the contributory factors for rear axle breakage is misaligned drop-outs and I would be very surprised if it wasn't a factor here. Misaligned drop-outs subject the axle to permanent and unnatural loading. Combine this with time, rider body weight and a bit of out of the saddle argy bargy and - particularly if it wasn't the finest quality to begin with - it'll eventually fail.

Unfortunately it's impossible to know if this was a factor because as it fails the axle will bend the drop-outs....

Ive got a MTB in the shed about 18 years old, a Raleigh Max Ogre - one of those super heavy oversized steel frames with big fat tubes. A few years ago the rear axle broke and I replaced the wheel as it seemed the easiest option, but like you say the dropouts were bent and I (probably stupidly) did a small amount of gentle bending with a wrench to get the new wheel to fit and it rides well, but ive not got much confidence in it so havent riden it in 2 years. Im wondering if i should throw it in a skip or if i could fix it up put new tyres on it and use it for a pub/winter bike i wouldnt mind getting stolen. I think the rear dropout is still too tight and needs properly realigning if thats possible, the new rear wheel lockring seems to have worked its way loose too. I wouldnt want to throw too much money at it, but all the cables, pads, saddle, seatpost, BB, pedals were only just replaced.

In some respects its a faster ride than my Giant hybrid, no front suspension, smaller frame with lots of seat post and stretched out to bar ends so more aerodynamic.

 

[Miquel In De Rain]

A few months ago I had a lovely accident when my front axle snapped throwing me to the ground breaking my collarbone and opposite arm and taking the knee down to the ligaments.

However everyone who asked me about how it happened suddenly became a bike technician and hadn't ever heard of it happening. So now I've finally got the bike back and taken it apart thought I'd throw up some photo's showing it does sadly happen (and it does hurt!)

View attachment 10990 View attachment 10991

That happened to me in the late 1980's,the rear axle snapped (as opposed to the worse scenario of the front snapping).I locked the bike up at Tottenham,to get the bike back a few days later,when I went back it had been nicked.

Hope you are ok,although this has happened to me one I can see it happening as has happened to you.

 

[Cubist]

'Photos' not 'photo's'

A. Pedant

The apostrophe is correctly placed, as it replaces the letters "graph" missing on the abbreviated version.