[Tom Line]

We also use dead axles, primarily because they are much easier with the machining resources we have.

Since so many wheels come with correctly sized center holes for bearings, it is a very simple operation to poke a hole in your frame (be it "West Coast" or twin-beam) and slide a bolt through. Most of those same wheels come with ready-made sprocket mounting locations.

Generally speaking, live axles result in more machining requirements: hex stock requires a fastening method at the ends of the shaft, and also usually requires broaching certain elements. If hex is not used, then keys and keyed shaft is used, and you still need some type of end-fastening like e/c-clips or drilling and tapping the end of the shaft. Then you have to fabricate either a gear, keyed sprocket, or hex sprocket power transmission system.

We try to spend as little time as possible on our drive train, and the dead-axle setup is much faster for us to create. We've used it every year since '08.