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Aerozine Titanium Axle Road Skewers

4
£29.99

VERDICT:

4
10
Decent machining, smooth action and super light, but the front axle is too short
Weight: 
39g
Contact: 

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Here's something for the weight weenies. Aerozine's titanium quick release skewers help shave grams from your bike; they are 80g lighter than the standard Mavic quick releases which they replaced on mine. There's a couple of ways of looking at it: either you are paying £375 per kilo of weight saving (which sounds ridiculous) or for only thirty quid you're reducing the weight of a component by 66% (which sounds quite impressive).

Aerozine sent us quite a selection of their weight-saving bling including jockey wheels, seat-post clamps and headset spacers, all of which are available in a wide range of colours. We got the 90s-tastic electric blue set but you can choose from green, pink, gold, orange, black, red and silver to suit your bike. These blue skewers definitely don't suit the red and black of my bike, but in the name of providing you with the unbiased opinions which you expect from road.cc, I braved the disdain of my club-mates and fitted them anyway.

I've used skewers that looked like this before, the type with the ultra-skinny levers and exposed cam mechanism; they came with a set of inexpensive carbon wheels and were a classic case of cost-saving disguised as weight-saving. Those levers were utter junk - opening and closing the lever made a horrible scraping sound and I had zero confidence in their ability to perform their (rather important) function, so they went straight in the bin. So I confess to having expectations that were not the highest when I fitted these.

However, I can report that these are rather better made - opening and closing was smooth and silent, thanks to the hard plastic washer between the sliding metal pieces, and you can get them nice and tight without the feeling that something's about to break. The thin lever is obviously not the most ergonomic; you are certainly sacrificing a little here in the name of weight saving, but it is perfectly usable nevertheless. Once installed, I didn't find they needed adjustment or retightening.

The department in which they come up a little short is, well, length. Specifically, the front axle could do with being several millimetres longer. The dropouts on my race bike's carbon fork are not unusually chunky, but the length of the front quick release axle is such that there are only about two and a half turns of thread engagement. The skewer only makes it about half way through the (tiny) knurled nut when fully tightened. The rear skewer is of a better length, giving around eight turns on my frame before it's tight. With the quick release lever in the closed position and the nut removed from the other end, I measured the length of the front skewer from under the quick release flange to other end as 122mm. Compare this to your existing skewers to see whether these would suit your bike or not.

At the front, this is an annoyance because simply unscrewing enough to clear the wheel retainer tabs means the nut comes off altogether, with the attendant risk of the springs flying off into the bushes never to be seen again. Much more seriously, two and half M5-size threads is an awfully small amount of material to keep your wheel in place and I would be concerned at the risk of these stripping, with dire consequences.

The axle is titanium (of an unspecified grade) whereas all of the other hardware (including the nut) is 7075T6 heat-treated aluminium. It is the threads in the aluminium nut that I would be most concerned about as although this is one of the strongest grades of aluminium, its ultimate tensile strength is around 60% below that of most grades of titanium (and some way below that of good steel).

In summary then, these are well-made and significantly lighter than standard quick releases, but can only really be recommended for bikes where the front dropouts are slender enough to allow proper thread engagement.

Verdict

Decent machining, smooth action and super light, but the front axle is too short

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road.cc test report

Make and model: Aerozine Titanium Axle Road Skewers

Size tested: Blue

Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

Super super lite titanium / alloy skewers for ROAD.

These are obviously aimed at weight weenies or those who like to colour coordinate.

Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?

New technology for surface - twin colour 3rd generation Presstype lever provides solid function.

Material Titanium Axle, M5 ;

CNC AL-7075T6 Levers Front-100mm / Rear-132mm

Weight 44g Colors Black,Silver,Blue,Pink,Red,Gold,Green,Orange

Rate the product for quality of construction:
 
7/10

All the machining has been well-finished, there are no burrs or rough edges and the anodising hasn't worn or faded during the test period. Saving weight by reducing the axle length at the front is not an approach that I can support, however.

Rate the product for performance:
 
7/10

During the test period these skewers held my wheels in place without issues. I felt they didn't clamp quite as firmly as a heavier internal-cam quick release, however - resulting in some brake rub.

Rate the product for durability:
 
4/10

I'm marking low here based upon my experience with my bike. I would have serious doubts about the longevity of an aluminium M5 nut which only engages by 2.5 turns. If your fork's dropouts are slimmer such that the nut can engage fully then this wouldn't be a problem.

Rate the product for weight, if applicable:
 
10/10

66% lighter! Win!

Rate the product for comfort, if applicable:
 
4/10

The lever is very thin, and is therefore not that comfortable to get nice and tight.

Rate the product for value:
 
7/10

There are a few titanium-axled skewers available. Token and One23 are priced similarly, KCNC are a bit more. Tune and Zipp are a lot more.

Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose

They held the wheels in place and didn't need adjusting or re-tightening. A little more brake rub, perhaps.

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

Light weight, nice smooth quick release action (compared to cheap ones with a similar design that I've used in the past).

Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product

Front axle too short. Not a huge fan of electric blue in 2014.

Did you enjoy using the product? Mm I guess.

Would you consider buying the product? No.

Would you recommend the product to a friend? Doubtful.

Anything further to say about the product in conclusion?

Although these are nicely made parts, I think that for most bikes the front quick release is simply too short, hence the overall mark.

Overall rating: 4/10

About the tester

Age: 36  Height: 190cm  Weight: 78kg

I usually ride: Boardman CX team for the daily commute  My best bike is: Rose Xeon CRS

I've been riding for: Over 20 years  I ride: Most days  I would class myself as: Expert

I regularly do the following types of riding: road racing, time trialling, cyclo cross, commuting, touring, club rides, sportives, general fitness riding, fixed/singlespeed, mtb,

 

Jez spends his days making robots that drive cars but is happiest when on two wheels.  His roots are in mountain biking but he spends more time nowadays on the road, occasionally racing but more often just riding. 

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9 comments

Avatar
ronin | 9 years ago
0 likes

Skewers are one thing that I won't save weight on.
It's the kinda thing you'll think about when you're heading down hill at 40+mph.

Avatar
dapaca | 9 years ago
0 likes

If the reviewer is referring to SwissSide skewers, I have a pair and have had no issues with scraping noises and the length of each skewer is fine. I've also recently bought a couple of pairs of Planet X skewers which appear to be almost identical to the SwissSide ones (and half the price). Only done about 60 miles with these, but they seem okay and look great.

Avatar
Jez Ash replied to dapaca | 9 years ago
0 likes
dapaca wrote:

If the reviewer is referring to SwissSide skewers...

Nope, they look nice though.

Avatar
ajmarshal1 replied to dapaca | 9 years ago
0 likes
dapaca wrote:

If the reviewer is referring to SwissSide skewers...

Writing on the skewer facing a different way to writing on the fork. That angers the OCD monkey, it angers him greatly......

Avatar
dapaca replied to ajmarshal1 | 9 years ago
0 likes

That was my first thought when I fitted them. I may yet polish off the SwissSide branding.  3

Avatar
richcc | 9 years ago
0 likes

I always thought the received wisdom was that the elasticity of titanium made it a pretty poor choice for skewer axles?

Avatar
Paul J | 9 years ago
0 likes

I don't know, but they fit both my hybrid and road bike just fine  1 Though, the diameter of the skewer itself is less than that of my shimano skewers.

Avatar
Jez Ash | 9 years ago
0 likes

Mmhmm. And how long were they?

Avatar
Paul J | 9 years ago
0 likes

These look almost identical to the titanium skewers I got from China, for a lot less than the asking price of these.

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