Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Grease you eggbeaters from time to time!!!

...otherwise you'll get this :(

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_nslg6Ot5ZwA/TEEKTwRW7NI/AAAAAAAAAN0/2jZf1DXDZWE/s800/IMG_7205.CR2.jpg

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_nslg6Ot5ZwA/TEEKUgrXnRI/AAAAAAAAAN4/_1Phd8J5p64/s800/IMG_7208.CR2.jpg

you're lucky if that's the worst of it. I had an eggbeater lock up and unthread while mashing up a steep hill on my SS Mountain Bike. It unthreaded enough that I ripped it right out of the crank arm, stripping about a quarter of the thread depth. After struggling to remove the pedal from my shoe, I found it completely locked up. I took them apart, the outer bearing on the non-drive side pedal was fully seized. It happened over the course of a few crank revolutions and I never felt anything weird until my foot slammed into the trail.

I managed to fill the threads with a few thin layers of JB Weld, then re tapped the hole to salvage my Crankset. It's been fine since, but the pedals are in the trash and I'm leary about further use of eggbeaters... though I'm still successfully running the original version from 2002 or whenever they came out.

This happened with the cheapest version they make - the C, I believe. These pedals had less than a hundred miles on them. I didn't bother with a warranty claim, so I have no idea what Crank Bros reaction to the problem would have been. I was just happy to have salvaged an expensive crankset.

The same thing would happen to me if not a coincidence. I noticed a funny wobble in my left pedal when I was sitting in a Path train with my bike. It turned out that the grease was completely dry and as a consequence of this spindle had a lot of rust on it.

This story has a happy ending.
Right after I've discovered that one of spindles is ruined, I've decided to send'em to crankbrothers for service/warranty. Today I've received a new spindle, no questions asked and free of charge. Those guys are very nice!