Snapped Look pedal

A couple years ago I was following a slow car down a slight hill. They
stopped to admire a view, I stood up to blow past them at maximum effort and
snapped off a Ritchey pedal. I doubt I will ever buy a Ritchey pedal again.
The spindle suffered a brittle fracture. I didn't go down but I think the
people in the car must have thought I looked like some kinda spaz. It was a
slow, clumsy ride home. As I recall, it broke leaving enough of a stub that
by squeezing my feet together I could just wobble home.


"steveb" <[email protected]> wrote in message
newswT7d.168697$D%.162172@attbi_s51...
> Has anyone ever heard of a Look pedal breaking at the axle? Or, for that
> matter, any pedal snapping like that? I witnessed a friend of mine (200+
lb.
> pwerful rider) do exactly that with the predictable end result - him
hitting
> the pavement with the resulting road rash, leg cuts, etc.
>
>

That pretty amazing and fortunate that you didnt go down. Did you contacr
Ritchey about that failure?
"Dan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>A couple years ago I was following a slow car down a slight hill. They
> stopped to admire a view, I stood up to blow past them at maximum effort
> and
> snapped off a Ritchey pedal. I doubt I will ever buy a Ritchey pedal
> again.
> The spindle suffered a brittle fracture. I didn't go down but I think the
> people in the car must have thought I looked like some kinda spaz. It was
> a
> slow, clumsy ride home. As I recall, it broke leaving enough of a stub
> that
> by squeezing my feet together I could just wobble home.
>
>
> "steveb" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> newswT7d.168697$D%.162172@attbi_s51...
>> Has anyone ever heard of a Look pedal breaking at the axle? Or, for that
>> matter, any pedal snapping like that? I witnessed a friend of mine (200+
> lb.
>> pwerful rider) do exactly that with the predictable end result - him
> hitting
>> the pavement with the resulting road rash, leg cuts, etc.
>>
>>
>
>

On Sun, 3 Oct 2004 09:29:16 -0700, "Dan" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>A couple years ago I was following a slow car down a slight hill. They
>stopped to admire a view, I stood up to blow past them at maximum effort and
>snapped off a Ritchey pedal. I doubt I will ever buy a Ritchey pedal again.

A friend of mine broke the axle on a Dura Ace pedal. Everything can
break. Breaking pedals steel pedal axles is extremely rare. I don't
think any of these three data points mean anything about any of the
three brands.

JT

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On Sun, 03 Oct 2004 13:54:43 GMT, "steveb" <[email protected]> wrote:

>Has anyone ever heard of a Look pedal breaking at the axle? Or, for that
>matter, any pedal snapping like that? I witnessed a friend of mine (200+ lb.
>pwerful rider) do exactly that with the predictable end result - him hitting
>the pavement with the resulting road rash, leg cuts, etc.

It has happened before, as in this is not an unprecedented failure mode.
Extraordinarily rare with Look, at least from what I've heard of and read.

Ron

"steveb" <[email protected]> wrote in message
newswT7d.168697$D%.162172@attbi_s51...
> Has anyone ever heard of a Look pedal breaking at the axle? Or, for that
> matter, any pedal snapping like that? I witnessed a friend of mine (200+
> lb. pwerful rider) do exactly that with the predictable end result - him
> hitting the pavement with the resulting road rash, leg cuts, etc.
>

I have broken three pedals. All snapped at the axle while going uphill with
a lot of force. They were three different brands.

"steveb" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:e1W7d.103329$wV.50945@attbi_s54...
> That pretty amazing and fortunate that you didnt go down. Did you contacr
> Ritchey about that failure?

No, I wasn't hurt and just tossed them out. I didn't want a replacement
since I had lost faith in Ritchey and bought Shimano pedals to replace them.
I suppose that pedals fail now and then and I have no rational reason to
believe that Ritchey pedals are any worse than any other brand.

I figure the pedal only had about 2000 miles on it which is probably
somewhere around 1 million cycles of loading. The fracture had classic fan
shaped surface features. I weigh less than 170 lbs and most of my rides are
climbs. Seems pretty clear that there was a defect.

"Dan" <[email protected]> wrote:


>"steveb" <[email protected]> wrote
>> That pretty amazing and fortunate that you didnt go down. Did you contacr
>> Ritchey about that failure?
>
>No, I wasn't hurt and just tossed them out. I didn't want a replacement
>since I had lost faith in Ritchey and bought Shimano pedals to replace them.
>I suppose that pedals fail now and then and I have no rational reason to
>believe that Ritchey pedals are any worse than any other brand.
>
>I figure the pedal only had about 2000 miles on it which is probably
>somewhere around 1 million cycles of loading. The fracture had classic fan
>shaped surface features. I weigh less than 170 lbs and most of my rides are
>climbs. Seems pretty clear that there was a defect.

What kind of pedal was that? I snapped a titanium Ritchey MTB spindle
(the pedal was probably 7-8 years old, and had a LOT of miles on it).
I weigh only about 150 (~70kg) though. Lesson learned - titanium is
great stuff, but makes lousy pedal spindles.

And FWIW, it turns out the spindle that snapped had a "lightening
hole" drilled through the center - only it wan't really in the center,
but considerably off-center. This probably contributed to the
failure.

I managed to not go down also, though only by divine intervention or
other non-skill phenomenon - how else do you hit the curb three
separate times and not crash? ;-)

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

"Mark Hickey" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> What kind of pedal was that? I snapped a titanium Ritchey MTB spindle
> (the pedal was probably 7-8 years old, and had a LOT of miles on it).
> I weigh only about 150 (~70kg) though. Lesson learned - titanium is
> great stuff, but makes lousy pedal spindles.
>
> And FWIW, it turns out the spindle that snapped had a "lightening
> hole" drilled through the center - only it wan't really in the center,
> but considerably off-center. This probably contributed to the
> failure.
>
> I managed to not go down also, though only by divine intervention or
> other non-skill phenomenon - how else do you hit the curb three
> separate times and not crash? ;-)
>
> Mark Hickey
> Habanero Cycles
> http://www.habcycles.com
> Home of the $695 ti frame

Mark-

It was a low-end steel SPD pedal that I had on an old rigid steel MTB I was
using as a cross bike. I had gone down on some dirt roads with this setup
but the crashes were low-speed, not very dramatic and shouldn't have damaged
the pedals. Later, I borrowed a Klein road bike to try for a few months and
since it didn't have pedals, I put the cheap Ritcheys on it and used the MTB
shoes. It broke while on the road bike. As I recall, the spindle snapped
near the outer bearing and I could still pedal with that foot by being very
careful about holding it in towards the crank and pedaling gently.

BTW, I have one of your bikes and am still happy with it.

steveb wrote:

> Has anyone ever heard of a Look pedal breaking at the axle? Or, for that
> matter, any pedal snapping like that? I witnessed a friend of mine (200+ lb.
> pwerful rider) do exactly that with the predictable end result - him hitting
> the pavement with the resulting road rash, leg cuts, etc.

Ouch. Look's basic road pedal is a particularly good design,
among pedal spindles, with a good service record. But
everything has some measurable failure rate. Is your friend
OK? Which model? Mileage/history?

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Which brands and models? How much do you weigh?

AB

"RWM" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "steveb" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> newswT7d.168697$D%.162172@attbi_s51...
> > Has anyone ever heard of a Look pedal breaking at the axle? Or, for that
> > matter, any pedal snapping like that? I witnessed a friend of mine (200+
> > lb. pwerful rider) do exactly that with the predictable end result - him
> > hitting the pavement with the resulting road rash, leg cuts, etc.
> >
>
> I have broken three pedals. All snapped at the axle while going uphill
with
> a lot of force. They were three different brands.
>
>




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He's stiff and sore, but otherwise he is fine, especially considering there
was one oncoming and two cars directly behind him when it happened. The 2nd
car was an EMT first responder - good timing, huh?

The pedals were about a year old and the model was a black bodied version -
not sure which model desig.


"A Muzi" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> steveb wrote:
>
>> Has anyone ever heard of a Look pedal breaking at the axle? Or, for that
>> matter, any pedal snapping like that? I witnessed a friend of mine (200+
>> lb. pwerful rider) do exactly that with the predictable end result - him
>> hitting the pavement with the resulting road rash, leg cuts, etc.
>
> Ouch. Look's basic road pedal is a particularly good design, among pedal
> spindles, with a good service record. But everything has some measurable
> failure rate. Is your friend OK? Which model? Mileage/history?
>
> --
> Andrew Muzi
> www.yellowjersey.org
> Open every day since 1 April, 1971
>

On 2004-10-03, Mark Hickey <[email protected]> wrote:

> What kind of pedal was that? I snapped a titanium Ritchey MTB spindle
> (the pedal was probably 7-8 years old, and had a LOT of miles on it).
> I weigh only about 150 (~70kg) though. Lesson learned - titanium is
> great stuff, but makes lousy pedal spindles.

Campagnolo learned that lesson long ago with the "Super Record" pedal. It
wasn't long before "Super Record Pro" groups started appearing with steel
pedal spindles (IOW, "Superleggero" pedals) rather than Ti.

--

-John ([email protected])

"steveb" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<DwT7d.168697$D%.162172@attbi_s51>...
> Has anyone ever heard of a Look pedal breaking at the axle? Or, for that
> matter, any pedal snapping like that? I witnessed a friend of mine (200+ lb.
> pwerful rider) do exactly that with the predictable end result - him hitting
> the pavement with the resulting road rash, leg cuts, etc.

Pedal axles can and do break. I was riding with a guy on an evening
ride back in 1999 and his Time Equpe steel spindle pedal broke. He
was about 20 feet in front of me. We were turning a corner and he
stood up to accelerate up to speed. He went down. Concussion,
scrapes, torn clothes, busted helmet, etc. Thankfully his Klein was
not damaged. He was about 210 pounds. Pedals had many miles on them.

I have used the same Time Equipe pedals for many years and miles until
I retired them a year ago. Replaced with another set of Time Equipe
pedals.

"Roger Moore" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Which brands and models? How much do you weigh?
>
> AB
>
> "RWM" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>>
>> "steveb" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> newswT7d.168697$D%.162172@attbi_s51...
>> > Has anyone ever heard of a Look pedal breaking at the axle? Or, for
>> > that
>> > matter, any pedal snapping like that? I witnessed a friend of mine
>> > (200+
>> > lb. pwerful rider) do exactly that with the predictable end result -
>> > him
>> > hitting the pavement with the resulting road rash, leg cuts, etc.
>> >
>>
>> I have broken three pedals. All snapped at the axle while going uphill
> with
>> a lot of force. They were three different brands.
>>
>>
>

Two of the pedals were Shimano the third was the Performance house brand
Forte. I am not sure of the exact weigh of each break with the exception of
one of the Shimano pedals when I weighed 220. The other two were probably
closer to 240.

Russell Seaton wrote:
> Pedal axles can and do break. I was riding with a guy [...]
and his Time Equpe steel spindle pedal broke. [...] He went down.
Concussion,
> scrapes, torn clothes, busted helmet, etc. Thankfully his Klein was
> not damaged.

Ya gotta love cyclists! (I would have said the same thing) - Various
injuries, but thankfully the bike wasn't hurt!

I was on a century recently when a guy went down about 20 yards ahead.
As we pulled up a few seconds later, he jumped up and immediately
straightened his handlebars, not noticing the nasty cut on his forehead.
Various passersby got him bandaged up and were watching for signs of
concussion - confusion, dizzyness.

He seemed fine, and indeed finished the ride. As we rode away, I
remarked to a companion that I had feared befuddlement and perhaps
concussion from his immediate concern for the bike. My companion
corrected me - "but that's normal for us!"

Back to pedals - the championship of broken pedal spindles was held for
a time in the 80s by Cinelli for their M-71(?) pedals, which had a
flawed design - stress risers in the shape of the spindle. I remember
an acquaintance writing something like his senior engineering
thesis/project on the fracture surface and design of his M-71's.

Mark Janeba

steveb wrote:
> Has anyone ever heard of a Look pedal breaking at the axle? Or, for that
> matter, any pedal snapping like that? I witnessed a friend of mine (200+ lb.
> pwerful rider) do exactly that with the predictable end result - him hitting
> the pavement with the resulting road rash, leg cuts, etc.

unfortunately, these things happen. you don't indicate age or mileage,
but it would be highly unusual for the fatigue crack that certainly
preceeded this failure to have shown up on a visual inspection, so
there's not a lot you can do for prevention other than keep stuff clean
- rust pits are potential fatigue nucleation points - and replace
periodically. and stick to good name brands. there's nothing wrong
with look pedals.

On Sun, 03 Oct 2004 13:54:43 GMT, "steveb" <[email protected]> wrote:

>Has anyone ever heard of a Look pedal breaking at the axle? Or, for that
>matter, any pedal snapping like that? I witnessed a friend of mine (200+ lb.
>pwerful rider) do exactly that with the predictable end result - him hitting
>the pavement with the resulting road rash, leg cuts, etc.

I was checking out my wife's new Raleigh MTB when the left pedal came
off the crank. I have no idea why I didn't go down, but I managed to
come to a stop ok. Apparently the pedal just wasn't properly
tightened. I simply re-installed it on the crank with my adjustable I
had in my bag. Having a pedal come off has got to be one of the
scariest experiences for a bike rider, which doesn't involve being
struck by something.


Michael J. Klein [email protected]
Dasi Jen, Taoyuan Hsien, Taiwan, ROC
Please replace mousepotato with asiancastings
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