Originally Posted by
Kontact
The noted problems are both a fact and rare.
What is not an established fact is that the new design doesn't have it's own set of problems, under-tightened left pedals backing out being the most obvious. If the pedals were always installed by mechanics with torque wrenches, the chamfered design will work great. But if under-tightened it will back out, and if overtightened the taper will help split the crank end - something that the current design won't do.
The lack of 90 degree ledge in the pedal spindle will also make it harder to perceive when the pedal is started cross-thread.
To work correctly, the 45 degree taper can't be poorly machined. The current system is much more tolerant of sloppy fabrication.
The problem I always see with engineers is that they frequently see the upside of "the right way", while completely missing how consumer goods need to work even when used incorrectly - or at least be tolerant of misuse. They also seem to miss that change for change's sake is a mistake.
Take two bikes, one with the new pedal axle standard and one with the old. Which will perform better? Neither. It isn't lighter, smoother, stronger, easier to service or more aerodynamic.
Put 10,000 bikes on the road with the new pedal axle standard - how many will have pedal thread problems compared to 10,000 of the previous style? Quite possibly more. (See above)
Only a fool would take "Neither" and "Maybe more" and see the enormous waste of lost backwards compatibility as an advantage.
Some good points and arguments. This is my thinking:
A lot of those arguments could be used for threadless forks & stems. The main difference is that the threadless system promised lower weight - and was thus awesome for marketing.
The problem with the tapered pedal interface is it doesn't promise lower weight - if it did, it would probably have been adopted long ago in the cycling industry, even if all the potential problems you noted were very likely and very serious. I'm not convinced they are.
The system has been tested by enthusiasts on bikes, and it has been used for mounting automobile wheels for decades (automobile wheel bolts used to have left-handed thread on the left side at the start), since 1970s if I'm not mistaken.
Regarding the cranks splitting: I would expect threads to strip long before a crank gets split by a pedal being screwed in.
I find your argument about consumer misuse to be quite ironic. What I see very often is people not realizing that the left pedal has the left-hand thread. Tapered interface would solve that, real and common, problem too. The same goes for cranks cracking at the pedal interface - the existing system is prone to that so the consumers need to keep an eye out for any cracks on their cranks so their pedal doesn't rip-off (resulting in a fall, or a swerve into a cliff or traffic).
Relja Novovic