Losing the pedal

[atomboy]

Thursday evening I had a embarassing and terrible situation, I lost my left pedal when I wanted to go fast after turning. I lost my poise (or balance?) so I fell down. My left elbow was blending so I visited the ambulance. Now I've a rest for some days.

There is my video:


And two picture of the broken pedal axle (I hope, that is the correct word in English).

Now I have two questions:

1. Could I notice the problem in time, during the maintenance? What did I have to notice? I didn't saw any splits this spring.

2. How can I put this little stuff out from the crank arm?

 

[fossyant]

Its a cheap pedal andcits unlikely you would have spotted it first.

Have you got a drill ?

 

[fossyant]

You , may be lucky in that the inner edge of the axel may have a hex key slot.

 

[Sara_H]

Ouch!

Looks like it sheared off This happened to me once, on a new bike that was very badly made/put together. Luckily I remained upright.

 

[smokeysmoo]

As fossy says, look on the inside of the crankarm for a hex key slot. If there is one happy days as you can then just use an allen wrench to undo the snapped thread.

If not then it gets messy, options include;

1-drill the spindle out as close as you can to the threads of the crank and then chip out the rest

2-drill a hole into the spindle and buy a thread removal tool

3-cut a thin but quite deep ridge into the spindle (very easy if you have a dremel tool) and get a big flat head screwdriver and start to twist it out

4-take bike to LBS leave it with them, pick it up in a few days all sorted

GWS

 

[HLaB]

Ouch, GWS! the closest Ive been to that was when the left crank fell of the BSO on the biggest Rbt in Chelmsford (fortunately I held that).

 

[GrasB]

And people wonder why I wear arm 'warmers' all year round... cheap lycra arm warmers can save a lot of road rash and cost a few £ (plus open weave ones work as arm coolers when sweating hard while keeping the sun off your arms!)

2. How can I put this little stuff out from the crank arm?

• Buy (imo they're not worth hiring) a set of screw removers
• Drill the largest hole you can in the stub of the axel without damaging the crank threads
• Tighten the screw remover until you extract the axel stub.

For this job it doesn't matter which hand the thread is as the axel stub can exit either side of the crank.

HTH.

 

[gambatte]

? Lh pedal = LH thread?
Drill, tap, screw a bolt in and keep turning.
Provided u or a mate has a drill and a tap...

 

[GrasB]

? Lh pedal = LH thread?
Drill, tap, screw a bolt in and keep turning.
Provided u or a mate has a drill and a tap...

Doesn't matter which thread it is the stub being able to pass through the thread in both directions. Problem with using a tap & bolt is that you're relying on the thread strength.

Screw extractors jam them selves into the hole & thus can exert far more force without stripping the thread they've created. Further more if the thread does strip it simply makes more thread with a larger diameter to exert more force against!

 

[gambatte]

Aye, quick read, quick response. I forgot this is a through hole.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Thats a rare one, I've not seen a pedal spindle shear before.

 

[atomboy]

Thanks for the ideas, guys. My father could remove that thing from the crank arm today afternoon.
Well, my wound still hurts, but I hope, tomorrow I can ride a bit.