Here's a premise. "Quick release axles are much weaker than solid axles". That's not a big leap of faith. We had some strong technical discussions about the pros and cons of nutted axles versus quick releases. It seems to me that one engineer-type lister proposed that the nutted axle provided substantially more strength than the QR version. (yes I know it was disputed) He also thought that the axle was also stronger.
I'm 220 lbs and I've been commuting 24/7 for 15 years (almost) with panniers and gear and I haven't broken any axles either. That includes several years of weekend warrier racing...packs, potholes, centuries etc.
I think Joels anecdote covers the strength of Sturmey Archer axles quite thoroughly however.
Warren Young Toronto
>on the other side of this coin, i have to pipe up in defense of those
> of us who ride major miles, on nasty pavement, and dont break axles.
>
>im a bike messenger. i do 15000 miles a year on my work bike. my
> rear hub? 1950s era alloy-body sturmey-archer AW. in 4 years on
> this bike, rotating through 4 of these hubs (due to toasted rims or torn
> hub flanges, never due to problems with the internals, mind you),
> with dropouts that may well be misalligned now, but werent post-build
> (its a custom bike) ive had exactly *zero* axles break. in fact, i cant
> remember the last time i broke an axle on *any* of my bikes. im 6'1",
> 175 lbs, and i ride the work bike with loads of up to 200 lbs (beyond
> my body weight). all of this in downtown san francisco, with some of the
> nastiest pavement ive encountered outside of eastern europe.
>
>trust me, my axles are subjected to worse stuff than yours :)
>
>any correlation between breaking or not breaking axles and how often
> you ride, or how "hard" you ride (heck, or even how aligned your
> dropouts are...) can seem *very* tenous at times...
>
>-joel