Originally Posted by
fender1
Why does original even matter? It is simply a construct established to make people feel a certain way about a thing. Just buy a second crankset and that has already been tapped if you feel like you don't want to tap yours. They come up on ebay regularly. No need to wring your hands over it. If your preference is for using clipless why make yourself unhappy or enjoy the very nice riding bike less for the sake of "originality?"
I have tapped every French crank I have ever come across, even if I was planning to re-sell it and not use it myself. I consider French pedal threads to be problem in need of a solution. Park tools provides me a very nice solution......
To me, it would only matter if/when I was going to sell a bike, if the buyer wanted to use original pedals (which I would likely be including in the sale).
An Ebay sale would require disclosure, which might turn off some buyers who perhaps wanted to use original pedals or who, like me, might think about the day that they themselves might sell the bike.
The bottom line is that tapping French threads to 9/16" can affect the market value of the bike, and a "second crankset" is not always an easy thing to source or to source cheaply.
So I continue to wonder if 9/16" re-tap affects the ability to fit and use 14mm French-threaded pedals, but I expect that the looser fit would at least be noticeable during installation, and perhaps not suitable for hard riding.