Pedal Problem

I got my first high quality LOOK clipless pedals back in 1992. Later I switched to Shimano pedals with a very similar design. Shimano tried to develop its own pedal , but the LOOK system was so elegant that Shimano gave up and paid LOOK to license their design without patent infringement.

I’ve ridden over 160,000 miles in the last three decades, and I have never had a pedal problem. Never. The bearings do not seem to wear out, the retention mechanism that holds your shoe cleats in place keeps working, and the only time the pedals make any noise is when those cleats are worn out and it is time to get new ones. About every 7,000 miles for me.

My friend Bill is not so lucky. Bill is a relatively new road cyclist. He started riding with the Stockton Bike Club and has become a Thursday regular. Last Sunday I rode with him for the entire Ride for Art event. Bill is a good rider but he said he had never done more than 60 miles or more than 4,800 feet of climbing on a single ride. So when we finished with 80 miles and 7,700 feet climbed on Sunday he was well satisfied with his effort.

His bike has been making a very irritating noise for months. I asked him about it on Sunday. We all thought it was his bottom bracket. He had one on order for a long time, but COVID has really disrupted supply chains and many bike parts are in short supply. But his had finally arrived and been installed, and the noise persisted.

On Thursday the mystery was solved. After 5 miles of riding on South Comanche, we stopped to regroup, and as he unclipped Bill discovered that his pedal was wobbling. Then he pulled it out of the crank arm without a wrench. The threads on the crank are were stripped! So severely stripped that he shoved the pedal in and out of the hole where the threads were supposed to be like a piston in a cylinder.

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A loose pedal is a real problem that can be catastrophic if it fails when you are out of the saddle putting all of you weight on it. If it loosens suddenly or (worse) breaks, you can crash and in the process injure some very tender body parts. He is lucky that didn’t happen.

But he is also kind of unlucky. Pedal problems are exceptionally rare. The noise had been going on for months, and I know he checked the pedals and they were tight, but there must have been some play in the threads that eventually worked loose and left him with a stripped crank arm.

There are some patchwork fixes for this, but I wouldn’t trust them on such a critical interface between bike and rider. So the only answer is a new crank. A new Ulterga crank to replace its ruined twin will cost $290. And the pedal threads look kind of battered, so he will probably need to spend another $180 to replace them too. Ouch!

There is a moral to the story. A quality bicycle properly maintained should be nearly silent. Any new squeak or thunk or rattle is a sign of potential trouble. So try to isolate the cause and solve the problem ASAP. Before the possibility of solution is ‘stripped’ away.