This is decidedly the wrong time of year to tout a product meant to keep your indoor riding game going, but sometimes stuff doesn’t arrive in time for the requisite conditions. In this case, those conditions would be cold, wet days where going out on the bike sounds less fun than high school detention.
Nevertheless, I remain excited about this little gizmo. The advent of thru-axles on bikes has rendered most stationary trainers door stops. Granted, it’s not hard to find thru-axles with capped ends that will work with a trainer, but until Saris came out with their axle, none of the thru-axle adapters on the market worked with the SRAM UDH. The problem has been the 6mm Allen nut that secures the UDH to the frame. Thru-axles are too large to pass through that hole. And trust me, I ordered more than I’d care to count in an effort to find one that did.
Why would I order multiples? Well, as a fitter, I’ve been forced to punt more than once because I was fitting someone who owned a mountain bike with a UDH. In every case, I ended up fitting the rider on another bike and then transferring their fit to the mountain bike, a less that optimal answer.
Well when the Saris Indoor Trainer Thru-Axle Adapter(s) (I ordered two different lengths) arrived, I immediately marched down to my garage to see if they played nice with the UDH and may have let a whoop escape my lips when I found that it did.
The Thru-Axle Adapter comes in two lengths (142mm and 148mm x 12mm) to accommodate both road/gravel and mountain bikes along with an assortment of different washers to dial the fit. It also comes with a shorter bolt-action slider tube for Saris indoor trainer owners, to allow for the wider rear spacing. That said, this thru-axle adapter is likely to work with any wheel-on trainer, so long as it can accept the axle length.
In a move that left me slack-jawed with delight, Saris threaded both ends, with one end pitched with 1mm threads and the other end cut to 1.75mm threads. Another 148mm x 12mm axle is cut to 1.5mm threads. At $59.99, there are cheaper options out there, but there are no other options that work with the SRAM UDH, so while it’s possible to spend less than half this for some axle adapters, your bike may force your hand, or wallet, as the case may be.
Final thought: People sometimes wonder why I still get excited about reviewing products. That I can get so worked up over a thru-axle that will never see an inch of singletrack … well, that’s your answer. I love a product that fixes a problem no one else has addressed.