My bud Tim's right-side pedal on his vintage 1980s road bike at the axle while he was biking home from the Fort Collins Library.

My Neighbor Eats Pedals

“Hi Felix,” my neighbor and good friend Tim wrote. “I just got back from biking to the library, but my pedal came off and I had to walk it back some of the way, maybe you could take a look at it tomorrow but I think it came clean off. If it’s repairable I’ll be able to go, but I think it needs welding or something.”

I was surprised to read this because Tim has a new bike. Well, it’s an old (1980s) road bike, but it has a nice Reynolds frame and top-of-the-line Shimano Dura-Ace components from that same vintage. This sounded suspiciously like what was happening to Tim in the last few years, except that was on a mountain bike. In that case, one of his crankarms kept loosening even though I kept torquing it down to proper spec with a torque wrench.

As it turns out, the failure mode of this was a bit different. See the photo above!

In fact, the axle of his left pedal completely sheared off. I haven’t seen this happen in a while.

“Do you think I am just pedaling too hard?” asked Tim. I responded with a smile, no, remember, these things are supposed to be able to withstand Tour de France racers sprinting up hills who can presumably induce far more material stress than a guy leisurely riding home from the library.

The good thing is that he was able to find a near exact replacement from the Fort Collins Bicycle Co-op for just $2. Yes, that is a really good deal.

In any case, I find it odd that Tim manages to come home so frequently with only one pedal attached to his bicycle. My neighbor eats pedals.

My bud Tim's right-side pedal on his vintage 1980s road bike at the axle while he was biking home from the Fort Collins Library.
My bud Tim's right-side pedal on his vintage 1980s road bike at the axle while he was biking home from the Fort Collins Library.