alright, following my rant the owner of the bike shop is being really nice. hes offered to replace the pedals with a new set. i'm curious what i should look for. at first, i thought the MKS sylvan track would be a good choice (he apparently has them), but then i found businesscycles said it had traditional ball bearings. is this something i should be worried about for all season riding? are all pedals <$35 traditional bearings, or are most sealed and the MKS track is just old school? what about the MKS GR-9 (a long shot, since i don't know if he carries them) - sealed or traditional?

thanks

also, any tips for overcoming the emotional distress of having to return to your lbs after you have spent 1.5 pages of an email describing their poor service, followed by a separate 1.5 page letter to Raleigh about the shop as well? all over a broken flip up tab...

Wow, your minor problem is really well looked after by everyone.
I'd say if you will ride in some seriously wet/snowy weather and want the pedal to be problem and maintenance free for a long time, get sealed cartridge bearing stuff, but pay the price difference in cash to the shop. They are a lot more expensive then the cheapo plastic crap that broke on you, and the shop has no reason to lose that money.
Don't know the MKS, but if it is "track", it's probably not sealed, as it seldom rains in indoor velodromes. (Loose ball bearings are not a problem inherently, they can be sealed reasonably well)

honestly...i hate all this shop sympathy...they are businesses trying to make a buck like any business...the problem here stemmed from the guys in the shop being so high up on their horses that they couldnt take the time to deal with an inexperienced rider. Y'all talk about roadie elitism....I'd say mechanic elitism is a much more rampant and serious problem that prevents a lot of people from falling in love with biking. My solution was do do virtualy everything myself...but lots of guys cant figure that out.

Dude...understand that the only thing they did wrong was not give you the time of day to actualy look at the problem, then go back to the shop and suck em for every dime they are worth.

bump cause i want to get this figured out by tonight.

in regards to pedals,

for all season riding, should i worry about traditional bearings and look for sealed?
are most <$35 pedals traditional or sealed?
are the MKS GR-9 sealed or traditional?

You can always repack your pedals if they're getting grindey or something. I've switched over to TIME pedals, but other than that I've ALWAYS used traditional bearing pedals and been fine with them. I wouldn't worry about it.

i (along with most fixie riders i know in nyc) ride MKS sylvan track pedals year-round on the street and maintenance is a non-issue.

they're cheap pedals and don't spin as smoothly as high-end stuff, but i rarely feel like they need work. i might rebuild them once a year or something when i'm overhauling everything, but you're putting too much thought into this.

they're not going to seize up after one ride in the rain or anything.