Eddy_G 

It is my interpretation of their wording that an actual physical paper check will be sent. I do not know if it will be sent to the consumer's mailing address or in the box with the replacement crank to the dealer.
Turn around time is also not known to me at this time.
Make certain that all of your contact information including your mailing address is up to date with your LBS, just in case Shimano intends to mail a check directly to you.

Cheers!

icemilkcoffee 

This type of visual inspection will likely only catch the obvious cases. What really needs to happen is to clamp the steel axle in a vice, tighten a threaded rod into the pedal hole, and then flexing the heck out of the crank while looking for splits and openings.

Kontact

What's wrong with reverse thread pedals?

Threadless was lighter. A new pedal standard is neither lighter nor safer.

Kontact

Shimano doesn't require you to go to the original shop, and is unlikely to enforce a warranty period on a defective part.


The shop should have asked.

Bike Gremlin

The fretting damage and increased risk of cranks cracking at the pedal interface.

And yes, threadless is both lighter and safer. I suppose only lighter works for marketing, sales, and making money.
But at least they are happy to sell us helmets.

Relja

choddo

Why would the 45° interface mean the left pedal could be right-threaded. Does it change the nature of the rotational force on the pedal where it meets the crank?

Bike Gremlin

The ~ 45 degree interface would stop fretting and increase friction - thus enabling the left pedal to remain in place using a standard thread (and allow for making flat and symmetrical SPD pedals same for the left and the right ones).
The similar design is used for automobile wheel bolts (or nuts - depending on the wheel mount design, but there's always that tapered interface).

Relja

Kontact

That's ridiculous. Cranks cracking at the pedal hole aren't remotely common, which is why that site resorted to some sort of hollow crank as an example.

There is neither a safety or performance issue.

Eddy_G 

Nobody can stop you from checking your own cranks that way.

Eddy_G 

I agree. The crank pictured on that website looks as if someone layed it on an anvil and battered it with a sledge hammer until it failed.
Not exactly the designer's intended use.

choddo

Pretty sure that’s his site

choddo

you first 😁

Also how many people have a vise?

Bike Gremlin

I've pointed out the problems I've seen, and the solutions.

Apparently, the cycling industry (marketing teams) agree with your point of view, that it should not be fixed.
And so do most cyclists as far as I can tell.

Relja

choddo

I don't have a problem with someone fixing it especially if it brings the cost down slightly in the long term since manufacturers could stop making left threaded pedals in about a century - but it's not a problem that has ever entered my sphere of consciousness in 40 years of cycling. In fact, knowing that you have to reverse thread the left side is one of those little things that makes you feel part of an "in group" so I can imagine some people don't want it "fixed".

Bike Gremlin

I think most normal people don't even think about that until they have a problem. Even then, it's often blamed on "riding too hard," or a poor product sample (at best) - never on the poor design.

The same situation we had with quill stems. It took an MTB enthusiast to fix the problem. Fortunately, in that case, his patent also allowed for lower weight (in addition to greater safety, which was his main concern as far as I understand), so it caught on, 'cause light weight sells in the cycling world.

Relja

Trakhak

Designs that have endured for 100 years cannot be described as "problems." The quill stem wasn't (largely) superseded because it represents a problem; it's a demonstrably adequate design that might have continued to dominate the market indefinitely had an improved design not come along.

Same for the pedal eye design, except it has not yet been superseded. With the exception of some iffy Campy cranks and a few others, the failure rate has been so vanishingly low, no lawyers have managed to get rich suing over the issue.

Bike Gremlin

You can describe them however you like (I suppose "challenge" is the modern term for the word "problem").

You can also decide (and debate on) whether they should be fixed or if it's just good enough.

But the noted problems (and their solutions for that matter) are a fact.

Relja

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.

Kontact

Wait a minute, are you proposing to make cranks and Q factor even wider by increasing the width of the arm laterally?

Given where the primary force is applied to the crank, this doesn't just sound like a bad ergonomic idea, but poor engineering. Like insisting an I beam needs to be as strong laterally as vertically.

Bike Gremlin

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

Bike Gremlin

I'm saying that the current design makes them look more aero, but the flat-width does nothing for making them stronger and stiffer where they need to be. It mostly just adds weight.

So, they are bound to flex, especially when you stand on a pedal at 6 o'clock (with all your weight on the pedal), and that I believe helps with the cracking and water-induced galvanic corrosion.

There is some room on the inner (towards the bike) side - they are angled outwards already.

Relja

Kontact

The cranks are angled out to clear the front derailleur and chain. Crankarms have had wide with thin profile since they started being made of aluminum - this isn't a new thing attached to hollow cranks.

Kontact

People can fail to realize the left pedal is reverse threaded, and that will still never cause their pedal to fall off. It just makes them unable to remove the pedal without asking someone. That isn't a safety concern.

Crank arms don't crack at pedal holes. If they tended to there would pictures of such occurrences.
https://www.google.com/search?q=cran...F_enUS972US972

No one is buying what you are selling.

TC1

For what it's worth, I have a crankset covered by this recall so I stopped into my LBS a few days ago and inquired about the process. The first words out of the owners' mouth were "You're not getting a new crank if it isn't broken." To which I replied, "How exactly is 'broken' defined?" The answer was, 'There has to be a visible gap between the two bonded surfaces of the crankarm.'

In other words, this is more like CYA from Shimano. They are absolutely not going to be giving away a million new high-end cranksets, so don't get your hopes up.


As an aside, this recall is an important topic, so perhaps it would be better to split the pedal-thread-standard conversion off into its own post. Just a suggestion.

zandoval 

Wonder if this guy is going to go down in price?



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