Crank Brothers Fail

My very first pair of clipless pedals were Crank Brothers Eggbeater SLs, and every set of pedals I've had since where also Crank Brother Eggbeaters. Over the years I've looked at trying other brands, but that would require me to buy two sets of pedals. (I only own one pair of functional cycling shoes)

Well after 2 years of service (only ~6 months of usage) my Eggbeater 3s fail on me. How? Just look below. I was "just riding along" (my inner bike mechanic just shuddered typing that) and the pedal slipped off the spindle.

At this point the pedal had less than 1 hr to live

Everyone told me that it could be rebuilt, but I knew deep down that it was done. Like "stick a fork in it", it will never work again, done. But, being an engineer, I had to figure out exactly why it had fail. Let's say I had a "need" to reverse engineer the failure to identify the failure mode. 

"Heath, I think something is wrong with my pedal". I though I had just unclipped suddenly.

The newer Eggbeaters have 2 peaces that make up the main body. The last pair of Eggbeater I owed had a one peace body, so when I saw threads showing near the inner part of the pedal, I would just ignore it and screw it back in next time I had the bike on a stand. 

 

 Well as you can see on the bad pedal, when the two half's started to separate they became miss aligned. This put the outer bearing in a bind. Over time this bind caused the outer bearing to eat itself, thus leading to the body have nothing to keep it on the spindle. This was completely an issue of user error, not a manufacturing issue.

Top: (L to R) Spindle, Body A, Inner Clip, Spring, Outer Clip, Outer Bearing, Locking Nut, End Cap Bottom: Spindle with Locking Nut, Miss Aligned Body unit, Inner race of Outer Bearing

This leaves me with a sticky situation, buy another set of Eggbeaters? Or try something new?

The main reason to run Eggbeaters over their main rivals is mud shedding. Eggbeaters are by far the best pedal on the market for muddy races. But here in NWA we don't have issues with mud, it's far too steep and rocky. The rockiness also leads to lots of pedal strike with wire type pedals like the Eggbeaters. So it was clear to me that it was time to try something new.

Sometime this week I should receive my new set of pedals. Shimano M520, the cheapest set of SPD pedals I could find. Shimano was one of the first companies to produce clipless pedals, and have very high quality bearing on all their pedals. I also have never heard a single complaint about Shimano SPD pedals. (With the exception of races/rides that involve "peanut butter mud") So I shall see if I agree with the masses, or if I'm just a Crank Brothers fan boy.   

As always I just need to Ride More, Ride Harder, and Get Faster.