Originally Posted by verktyg

BITD, especially during the height of the Bike Boom Fad, many makers, especially the French (Gitane in particular) were using cotters that were Wayyyy to soft. They easily distorted and worked loose. It was difficult to find hardened after market cotters. We used to get some from Zeus that were strong and through hardened but expensive. We reserved them for better quality bikes that had cottered cranks.

I was a forceful masher back in the early 70's and had to replace the cotters on my 1972 Gitane Gran Sport almost monthly because the crank arms worked loose.

Those soft cotters were one of the impetuses for the adoption of cheap cast aluminum (melt forged euphemism) cotterless cranks that became De rigueur on decent lower priced bikes by 1975...

There was nothing wrong with quality cottered cranks with good cotters. But hey, looks were everything and that's what sold bikes!

randyjawa those forged steel Stronglight cranks with alloy chainrings pictured above were handsome!

verktyg