magic motorcycle crank failure

I just did some maintenance on my bike. Last fall when I stopped riding my racing bike I had noticed
that the cranks I had, Magic Motorcycle Cranks, were make some strange noise. Last time they made
noise it was the bearings letting me know it was time to change them. I assumed that was the noise I
was hearing again. I put in new bearings, but the noise was still there. I took the cranks off and
decided to take the chainrings off for a closer inspection. When I was taking off the screws that
hold the chainrings in place, the thin arms that hold the rings in place just broke off at the ends.
Anyone else experience this type of failure on these cranks? I compared these cranks to another set
of CODA 900 cranks I have, and I notice that the CODA cranks thin arms are not machined as much.

-----------------
Alex __O _-\<,_ (_)/ (_)

 

Alex Rodriguez writes:

> I just did some maintenance on my bike. Last fall when I stopped riding my racing bike I had
> noticed that the cranks I had, Magic Motorcycle Cranks, were make some strange noise. Last time
> they made noise it was the bearings letting me know it was time to change them. I assumed that was
> the noise I was hearing again. I put in new bearings, but the noise was still there. I took the
> cranks off and decided to take the chainrings off for a closer inspection. When I was taking off
> the screws that hold the chainrings in place, the thin arms that hold the rings in place just
> broke off at the ends. Anyone else experience this type of failure on these cranks?

Sounds like magic to me. I'm not familiar with these cranks and Coda does not have a web site (not
good) but breaking of the ends of the crank spider is a clear sign of poor design. Too bad component
manufacturers often use the customer as a proving ground.

Jobst Brandt [email protected] Palo Alto CA

 

I would imagine that these are pretty old since CODA bought the design awhile ago, many years. The
only failure I know of is on CODA cranks that fall into a recall program. Of course since those are
not made anymore either, Cannondale will replace with a new, different model crank. I have had many
of the CODA cranks w/ no problems, both on the road and mtb models, great design that is from 1992.
I had heard that the CODA magic style were manufactured under better tolerances in a different
factory than the original Magic Motorcycle cranks. Sorry to hear about the problem, really a nice
piece of componentry. I'm upset the coda's won't quite fit on my new mountain bike, full suspension
makes the area around the BB a little fat for the coda small chainring to clear. The new XTR is
probably better, they really went to school on the magic design. "Alex Rodriguez"
<[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> I just did some maintenance on my bike. Last fall when I stopped riding
my
> racing bike I had noticed that the cranks I had, Magic Motorcycle Cranks,
were
> make some strange noise. Last time they made noise it was the bearings
letting
> me know it was time to change them. I assumed that was the noise I was
hearing
> again. I put in new bearings, but the noise was still there. I took the cranks off and decided to
> take the chainrings off for a closer inspection. When I was taking off the screws that hold the
> chainrings in place, the
thin
> arms that hold the rings in place just broke off at the ends. Anyone
else
> experience this type of failure on these cranks? I compared these cranks
to
> another set of CODA 900 cranks I have, and I notice that the CODA cranks thin arms are not
> machined as much.
>
> -----------------
> Alex __O _-\<,_ (_)/ (_)

 

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]nfordalumni.org writes:

>Sounds like magic to me. I'm not familiar with these cranks and Coda does not have a web site (not
>good) but breaking of the ends of the crank spider is a clear sign of poor design. Too bad
>component manufacturers often use the customer as a proving ground.

CODA = Cannondale Original Design Application (or something close to that). I don't recall much
about CODA components on C'dale's web site, but that's the best place to start.

Tom Gibb <[email protected]

 

TBGibb wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] writes:
>
>
>>Sounds like magic to me. I'm not familiar with these cranks and Coda does not have a web site (not
>>good) but breaking of the ends of the crank spider is a clear sign of poor design. Too bad
>>component manufacturers often use the customer as a proving ground.
>
>
> CODA = Cannondale Original Design Application (or something close to that). I don't recall much
> about CODA components on C'dale's web site, but that's the best place to start.

When Cannondale went through the recent reogranization, the CODA web site disapeared. I was
wondering if Cannondale had decided to use more after market OEM components vs. their own internal
manufacturing for stuff that others have much more experience at turning out quality cheaply
(chainrings, cranks, disc brakes...).

The CODA stuff that I've used was decent -- about equivalent to Deore/LX. I had no problems with
their cranks and put over 10k miles on the set that came with my F1000. They finally gained enough
slop in the splines that they needed to be replaced and I replaced them with RaceFace ISIS cranks on
a TruVativ BB (which had worked very well for me).

David

 

Alex, do you still have the broken crankset? I've got a broken left arm, any chance yours are 175mm?
-----------------
Alex __O _-\<,_ (_)/ (_) [/B][/QUOTE]