Was riding the other day at my local trails and went over a small rock garden jump to flat. Not at all a big feature or something most of us wouldn’t regularly hit. All of a sudden I heard a large snap sound and was on the ground before I could even process what happened. It felt like I snapped a crank before I took a look and saw this. Apart from a few bruises I fortunately walked away okay. I’m lucky this didn’t happen on a bigger feature as things could have been much worse. Imagine hitting a 10 foot drop or something and this happened to you. Maybe we need to start inspecting pedal spindle for cracks??
Has anyone else ever had this experience? I’ve never seen this kind of failure before and nobody I know has either. These pedals have seen 5 seasons of riding so maybe that’s the problem but still not something I’d expect.
Crank brothers thankfully sent me a free new set of spindles and a bonus multi tool.
(Also for the engineers out there that care, beach marks are clearly visible on the sides where stress fractures have clearly been growing well before the failure occurred. Quite interesting.)
by Luh_kh
18 Comments
Been a lot of years, but yes. I snapped one at the outer end and the whole body slid off the spindle while I was riding home from the trail.
I had this exact thing happen with my crank brothers stamp pedals. It was a couple of years ago.
Ya, why?
I’m curious, how old are the pedals?
I broke a spindle on the previous gen Shimano Saint pedals close to 10 years ago. I can’t remember if it was a clean shear like yours. They were only a year or so old, and I’d say they weren’t ridden that hard. I have 3 1/2 pairs of the same pedals still, some on bikes ridden hard, some as spares ocassionally swapped onto bikes, and they are all running fine up to 10 years later. I probably just got unlucky and the 0.1% failure or whatever it would be, manufacturing isn’t perfect.
Mines hanging on the wall. Very first feature I pedaled over at a bike park i was visiting, left one let go as i rolled over a small rock.
Several times actually. Crank Bros, loaded precision, and a couple different no name Amazon specials. I just run diety t-macs and Canfield crampons now, I’d rather spend the money than have a cheap pedal pop on a real fast drop and castrate me or something.
Yes, twice
Once mid ride, and once about 30 min before the start of a DH race (fortunately there was an LBS 5 min away)
Pretty normal for crank brothers.
Where did you get the pedals? Crankbrothers really wanted to track the origin of the 2 pairs I broke in a summer (2 amazon vendors). Or maybe they were interested in tracing back the lot#s or somwthing.
They replaced both when I sent them in. Pedals break/shear/bend, but shouldn’t do it so easy/clean/soon
Does crack brothers make anything that’s not shit? The og seatpost , enduro pedals, these fuckin pedals
Yep, a few times riding bmx/dj back in the day (primo and odyssey pedals if memory serves). Haven’t had a spindle snap since college, guessing processes have improved since my riding has only gotten harder and worse.
No but it’s in the back of my mind every time I send a drop.
Had a friend do it a few years back with nearly brand new pedals. He’s a bigger dude, maybe 250 lbs; brought just like that.
Once on a lightly used pair of race face pedals. Considered it just bad luck I still buy their stuff.
I’ve had my crank brothers pedals now for about 4 years now. Maybe a weak spot?
Crankbro’s being crankbro’s
Definitely let the vendor know. They don’t want the liability, so I’m sure they’re interested in defects, especially if it can be traced to one of their suppliers.
Lucky that didn’t fillet open your calf!!!!