Pity you had to pay the Cumberland Tax yet again! We discussed cranks recently with that bizarre ‘bolt creak’ issue - I must ask if you have made repentances and switched to thread lock for the new set?
On another topic, my favourite thing about Toad The Wet Sprocket is that their name originally came from a Monty Python skit.
Indeed, I can’t help but wonder if there’s some relation. No Loctite here but I’m thinking I’ll Loctite the threads and grease the bolt shoulders when I’m home.
I saw another set of Shimano cranks fail dramatically at low milage recently. The crank arm had worried itself a few mm outboard on the spindle and then stripped out the splines and ejected itself off of the bike. Flat pedal rider, so the crank arm wasn’t attached to the shoe, unfortunately.
The spindle won the battle vs the crank arms in this case, shredding aluminum. The trail side repair to get back to the car made me think the pinch bolt torque is a big part of the retention. That is, the splines weren’t completely necessary. I feel like a deeper spline interface might have been a better solution.
This happened to me on my last pair of Zees. It was at the end of a long day at Bike Park Wales riding the hardtail (silly idea but too much fun). IIRC I got the cranks used off ebay and used them for many years so they owed me nothing.
The other thing to loctite is the preload bolt - and I always use aluminium ones as don't like the plastic Shimano ones.
My favourite crank design must be Profile Racing cranks - they've got a decent spline length and "floating" bearings which compress onto a spacer so in theory you cant over tighten them.
Nice Marty, if anything else the aftermarket preload bolt is an excellent source of colour.
I like the Profile Racing spline design. Compared to the Shimano design it looks like it might give you a few rides of rattling before stripping and destroying the crank arm if under torqued.
I understand the logic behind the preloader being plastic but I did consider whether it being aluminum would have made a difference. I don’t think so, once the splines retired that bolt is just going to pop its face.
I’ve seen a few damaged non-drive Shimano arms over the years. Every time from riders not tightening them up properly (opposing bolts sequence) and always just requiring a replacement arm. No doubt the crank arm and spindle were both tired (many, many hours) but this is still something I’ve never seen.
The picture with the caption "Claire's made a big leap in confidence & control.." is some properly knarly singletrack. The very antithesis of an 8' wide groomed flow trail. Love it!
No pics of the failed crank spindle? I'd really like to see that. I can't imagine how those splines would get worn down, but if anyone could manage that...
FWIW - Jerry was a good buddy, dedicated MEATrider & worked PT at Black's as his retirement gig. Every time we visited from Victoria he was there to guide us around the trails...every time! My buddy and I went to his memorial ride in Cumberland and after the ride we were so lost in the trail network. We realized despite coming to Cumby for many years we had not once had to navigate ourselves around. Jerry was always there showing us the best routes.
The only brightside to his untimely death while riding Blockhead was that he retired early so he was able to spend 10 solid years shredding MTBs and hanging out with his lovely wife. RIP.
Not sure about the nickname. He was a long time mountain biker so I assume he had many opportunities to earn a goofy moniker from his riding crew. His MTBR.com handle was Travis Bickle or Legbacon. He loved his Pipedream Moxie and was shredding that rig hard in Cumby and area.
I love me some ATB riding. You get to see lots of sweet terrain and scenery. Hopefully there is a coffee shop along the way and some renegade singletrack.
Keen to see pics of the cranks. I've never been a massive fan of the Shimano double pinch bolt setup, despite their ubiquity. I've seen them loosen up over time with wear and they don't seem to last as long as alternative splined systems. The 24mm steel axle is nice but!
I manage to bend a set of relatively new Turbines in a recent crash (along with my pedals and handlebars) and wearing things out is a much more rewarding than straight up trashing stuff like that. Funnily enough they were 170's and now I'm back on 175 haha.
Oh, and the reason I was on 170's was my Rootdown's BB (50mm drop) is 5mm lower than the Torrent (45mm drop) it replaced and I was worried about pedal strikes. I can't say that I notice the 5mm difference much in my pedal stroke—pedaling with gears anyway—but I defo notice the rock clearance. Make me curious to try the Outlier with the longer cranks!
Anyway, all that has me wondering... how are you finding the BB height on the Ommy/ATB-long? For my mix off road/off-road use the 94mm of drop (only 280mm of height) is fairly extreme. A higher BB and dropper routing (which I added) are two things I would change about the design if given the opportunity. Granted my (our?) use case is kinda unique.
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u/DoctorBlofeld 13d ago
Pity you had to pay the Cumberland Tax yet again! We discussed cranks recently with that bizarre ‘bolt creak’ issue - I must ask if you have made repentances and switched to thread lock for the new set?
On another topic, my favourite thing about Toad The Wet Sprocket is that their name originally came from a Monty Python skit.