Am I the only person in the world that has mashed his shins when his Candy’s disintegrate? I’ve had 3 pairs now and they’ve all fallen to bits – the bearings wear, the pedal comes off and the spindle goes in your shin….surely this shouldn’t happen?

I have four sets and they’re all perfect.

All crank brothers stuff is over priced cack…can’t see why anyone buys any of it. I’ve never met someone who has ‘enjoyed’ ownership. Some great ideas poorly executed.

…..obviously IMHO of course 🙂

I love the pedals, but am getting fed up with a lack of skin on my shins!

It must be the magic number – 4 pairs and no complaints here. The cheapest OEM ones are getting a bit shonky now but can’t complain as they were all of £8 including cleats. 4 years ago.

Hmmm – I’ve had a number of pairs over the years – on all my mountain bikes. I have the current version on the MTB and the Tripster (Candy 2 on one and 3 on the other) and they’ve never troubled me. The Tripster ones did about 2,500 miles last year and feel like new.

They’re easy to service and I like their QR skewers and seatclamps too. I lost an end cap out of an old style Candy once and emailed 2Pure and they sent two out FOC within about 2 days! Little things like that help build loyalty but TBH, the products have done that for themselves.

All crank brothers stuff is over priced cack…can’t see why anyone buys any of it. I’ve never met someone who has ‘enjoyed’ ownership.

Hi 🙂 I’ve got three pairs of vayring ages. One pair are used daily. The oldest are about 4 years old and have been overhauled once when they developed a bit of play. Each pair were less than £30 new.
I am a very happy user of Cranks Bros Candy pedals.

Only time I ever had problems was when I knew the pedals had play but carried on riding them. 6 pairs of candy’s here.

I hear of it lots. Never hear of Shimano pedals doing that though.. And Shimanos are easier to service than CBs.
Times seem fairly indestructible too, until you bend a spring on a rock.

I’ve had 2 sets of Candy’s, one pair of Acids and one pair of Mallets.
I’ve used all of them till the bushings wore out and they developed alot of play.
I’ve not had one fall apart yet but I have heard of it happening.
I bet it happens on my next ride now.

snapped a stainless spindle on a pair of cb candys in half while cranking up a hill. wrote off a pair of shimano mt 90s as the remaining bit in the crank ran up the inside. just pleased i didn’t get my leg gouged in to the bargain. no play. not old. no warning signs. TIME.

I’m nearly about to make the swap to Shimano, I’ve several pair of smartys that are pretty shagged with not much use. To be fair I’ve pair of candys and a pair of eggbeaters and mallets which are fine but I seem to be waiting for them to go.

Smartys are the exception, I think. Not user serviceable and nowhere near as robust as Candy / Mallets.

I had one come adrift last week. Something of a pita but I was able to soft pedal home on it. It is my last CB failure having had a pair of Mallets fall apart and the general short lifespan when compared to Time ones I used to use.

But dangerous? Not sure about that. Any pedal that gives up the ghost is likely to leave an axle poking in the direction of your leg.

Another disintegrating crank brother pedals here too.
Last week whilst on turbo trainer .. bit scary too.

Before CB pedals I had never had one fail with the pedal body coming off and leaving the axle sticking out. Shimano & DMR never have this problem. That’s why i’m asking if they’re dangerous? On a car you don’t expect the wheel to fall off if the wheel bearings get some play…

On a car you don’t expect the wheel to fall off if the wheel bearings get some play…

TBF – they will if you leave ’em long enough!

I have a pair of Candy Sl and Original Eggbeater C’s ,both still on original bearings/bushings and still waiting for the rumoured self destruction.

Possible longevity might be down to the fact that I dismantled them both before use ,removed the factory grease and regreased with some stuff I have for car bearings.
Have used the grease injector a couple of times since.

Three of my riding buddies used CB pedals, all three have had problems with them. Two have now gone back to shimano, not sure about the third. It’d put me off using them.

Went through four sets of CB pedals back in the day. I got pretty good at pedaling with one leg. Also got pretty good at replacing those silly little bearings. Oh, except for the ones where they used a plastic screw cap which was often impossible to remove as the plastic would inevitably disintegrate when you tried to unscrew it. In the end I saw sense & went with TIME. Similar float and feel, except these ones aren’t a poorly designed bag of shite.

I’ve had 3 pairs now and they’ve all fallen to bits – the bearings wear, the pedal comes off and the spindle goes in your shin….surely this shouldn’t happen?

No it shouldn’t happen, and it won’t happen if you service them correctly by replacing the bearings and bushes when they need doing.

for those of you who have had the body fall off the axle:
– had they been serviced before?
– were there signs of play before it happened?
– any other signs that they didn’t feel right?

Just curious.

Mine had loads of play so I replaced the bearings and bushes. I’ve had them for 3 years now, they are as good as new apart from a few scratches.

Is this yet another issue with poor maintenance?

Now using Ward titanium spindles. No further problems.

TIME to change for me too…

Great design and mud shedding but flawed imo

I’ve owned 4 or 5 sets. Never had any disintegrate. For a while the eggbeaters were the only clipless pedals I used and they moved between singlespeed, road bike and hardtail constantly.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/i-love-eggbeaters-but-this-is-the-last-straw

Been there, won’t go back

It’s obviously a known issue with them so why would you buy 3 sets? I might chance one set if they were a bargain but as soon as it happened to me they’d be in the bin and I’d never touch a CB pedal product again.

As for all this ‘you need to maintain them’ crap, what a load of bs – any decently designed pedal should need minimal if any servicing, haven’t touched my 2007 XTRs apart from spraying with GT85 after washing the bike to stop any rust forming and they still spin smoothly…

I’ve never met someone who has ‘enjoyed’ ownership

Sounds more like a closed mind?

I know plenty who have “enjoyed” ownership – if that’s what you do with pedals.

I have an old pair of eggies – bearings replaced twice. Way over 5,000 miles ridden. On both occasions I knew they were in need of doing, but the second time I used them once too often and the body came off – so what?

I have a pair of candies, but they get very limited use – i just don’t like the 2-sided clip in. The 4 sided eggies are always ready to engage, and for that reason they are my pedal of choice. No regrets about selling the xtrs that didn’t get used after getting the eggbeaters.

I’ve had 2 pairs of Candy’s – a basic OEM set and a set of Ti with Ward Ti spindles. Both have performed faultlessly. I changed the bushes/bearings when a bit of play developed and occasionally degreased them and put in fresh but that’s it.

I only stopped using them because I switched to flats.

for those of you who have had the body fall off the axle:
– had they been serviced before?
– were there signs of play before it happened?
– any other signs that they didn’t feel right?

Just curious.

If there is a bit of play in the body on the axle, check that the bearing isn’t worn. Once the bearing gets worn, it can disintegrate and there will be nothing left to hold the axle in place.

I have a different problem with the needle bearings on my Eggbeater 3s – a needle seems to come loose and gets jammed, preventing the pedal from spinning properly. I’ve had this happen on two pairs now. I suspect that this is partly a lack of grease from the factory, so I’m now going to be filling them with lots grease and hoping they last a bit longer. To be fair to 2pure, they are good at sorting them out, but I shouldn’t have to get them to look at a 3 month old pair of pedals. I wonder if the Candy 2 or Eggbeater 2 (which don’t have the needle bearing) are going to be better for avoiding that specific problem.

Great pedals when they work, but do require a bit of TLC every now and again. 5 minutes with some grease, an allen key and a socket is all that is required though.

Great pedals when they work, but do require a bit of TLC every now and again. 5 minutes with some grease, an allen key and a socket is all that is required though.

I used that line many times, but the snapped axle was the last straw. Switched to SPDs and haven’t once regretted the choice. They’re cheap, light enough, work better than they used to (even in the Chiltern clag on Saturday they were faultless), and simply don’t need maintenance.

I’ve had two pairs of Mallets and a pair of Candys. One of the Mallets died after less than a year when the bearing went for a poo and the pedal broke apart, causing a nice nick to my shin on the axle.

The replacement Mallets have clocked up seven years and thousands of miles with only one rebuild and my Candys are three years old and came for free on a bike I bought so if they die tomorrow then I won’t complain.

Shimano pedals are ace though, a friend’s old skool DX pedals just never seemed to die, they’re in their second decade of service and he occasionally greases the bearings when he can be bothered.

I haven’t used them for years now and the only experience I have is of 4 sided beaters and thought they were great, I think I only changed them because I was building a new bike and went back to Shimano. To go off on a bit of a tangent; I now use Frogs and have for some time (thought I’d try them after falling for Zero’s on the road) and I think they are fantastic, if a little maintenance hungry; they don’t clog with mud, are easily adjustable and are great to get in and out of – what more could you want??

the best thing for me about CB pedals, and what makes me have them despite the reported maintenance issues, is the cleat engagement and the float – so easy to clip in and out of, yet very secure. they are also significantly lighter than Shimano or Time, even the basic ones.
Shimano/ SPD style pedals break my knees.
Strokes for folks.

I really can’t believe anyone would risk owning a set of CB pedals TBH…

Their reputation for falling appart has been earned in a relatively short space of time (They’ve only been making pedals for what the last 8 years or so?).

The likes of Time and of course shimano have been at it for much longer and hence have far more pedals in service, the reports of similar failures for those manufacturers products are nothing like as widespread or catastrophic as CBs.

Interweb hearsay is enough to deter me, why would I pay to be randomly stabbed in the ankle or calf?

CB did go through quite a significant redesign of their pedals, maybe last year? releasing mk2 versions of a lot of their pedals, including the Candys.
I wonder if anyone has had problems with these redesigned pedals?

I wonder if anyone has had problems with these redesigned pedals?

My problems with needle bearings* relate to the new pedals, but I’ve not had any problems (yet) with the platform sliding off the spindle (which the new design is supposed to help).

* I appreciate that bearings are a replaceable item – my beef is that I didn’t expect them to fall apart so soon.