Short answer: No. There you go!!!
However, if you’d like more details, as well as some exceptions to my short answer, read on. First I’m going to introduce yet more bike-jock (or is it bike-nerd? and is there a difference?) terminology:
Quick Release (QR) versus Thru Axle (TA): Before the middle of the 20th century, all bikes had wheel axles that were bolted onto the frame…the wheels could be removed, but only with the use of wrenches (this is still the case for a lot of kids’ and cheaper bikes, of course). If you ever got a flat tire, which happens A LOT if you bike any kind of mileage, changing the tube/tire was time consuming…and if you were out on a lonely road without the right wrenches in your immediate possession, a long hike was your destiny. Then, Tullio Campagnolo (whose last name you will hear a lot if you get into road biking, usually shortened to “Campy”, at least in the U.S.) invented the Quick Release hub. This allowed wheels to be changed out quickly via “dropouts” on the frame (see my post “How to Talk Like a Not-Newbie”), and with just the rider’s bare hands. This revolutionary invention by Mr. Campy is still pretty much the norm on bikes of almost all kinds. Sometimes the QR has a “skewer”, which is just a thin axle bar going through the hub (and which I always assumed was the same as a Thru Axle…nope!), and sometimes it is skewerless. The basic function remains the same, though: keeping your wheels attached to the frame firmly, yet making it easy to take them off rapidly.
Fast forward to the turn of the next century (2000) with the advent of disc brakes and suspension forks especially in mountain biking (see my above-mentioned post). QR was still the standard. Hardcore mountain bikers doing a lot of jumps and rough drops were experiencing their front wheels coming partway or all the way off. This would not have been a problem, except for the fact that the bikers were still attempting to successfully continue the bike ride, and usually at high speeds on rough trail at that. Ouch! For a few reasons that I won’t go into here, QR doesn’t do as well when biking downhill over uneven trails (or jumps) when disc brakes and suspension forks are involved. So, mountain bike makers developed Thru Axles, which are like a very thick QR skewer (thicker than a wooden pencil), but the big difference is they actually thread to the “dropouts” in the frame (which are not actually “dropouts” anymore but little holes to which the wheels attach…a better term would be “wheel holes”). Because the TA threads directly to the frame, (1) the axle is a lot more solid and can resist more pressure, and (2) even if the little flip-lever on the hub comes open during a ride, the wheel will still stay on the frame (it’s a good idea to close it as soon as you safely can, though). Mountain bikers loved this, and the TA became extremely popular. Now, since road bikes are starting to become like mountain bikes in some ways (with disc brakes and taller/wider/fancier wheels), the TA is being used on more and more road bikes.
All this leads to the title question…do you really need a Thru Axle setup on your bike? If you happen to do a lot of rough mountain biking at high speed and have more than a little money (in which case you would not be reading my blog except to poke fun at it), I would say sure, get TA hubs. If you fit any other description, I would say no, you don’t need it…TA hubs are more expensive and not necessary for almost all riders. A Quick Release hub, if properly used, will hold up under all but the most extreme forces on a bike, which nobody but the most extreme riders experience. And I say this even though, at age 18, I had a QR fail on me while riding fast on my dad’s mountain bike (yes, they had mountain bikes back then…I will admit they were new to the consumer market). The front wheel came completely off and I buried the forks into a gravel road. My ensuing wreck caused me to require reconstructive surgery on the upper-left quadrant of my face. But it wasn’t the QR’s fault, it was my fault for not properly closing the QR lever. I have kept using QR hubs ever since, without any further issues. And my face is doing quite well now, thank you.
This post took up more space than I expected, so I’ll address other fancy stuff next time. Disc brakes, suspensions front and rear, big ol’ wheels, crazy gears, kickstands, and cup holders!
Bike Newbie 