Ok, so those who know me from the various group rides will know that I've not had the best run of luck when it comes to mechanicals recently.
In the first STW peaks group ride my rear mech decided to kill itself after Bradwell, and on the last one we did you'll all no doubt remember my chain/spoke/chainset lock up problems and made-of-butter brake pads.

Well last night, out for a snowy night ride with ourkidsam, I got about a mile into it, and my pedal came off stil attached to my shoe. Can't work out how and will explore what's happened later.
So i headed home with a pedal constantly trying to work its way off the spindle thing.
Halfway home I hear a 'ping, ping, ping' and look to see one of my spokes has snapped.

I think i'm cursed.

Anyway, the one good thing that happened is my girlfriend couldn't get me a new rear mech for Xmas as CRC had sold out – so she bought me XT pedals instead

:o)

(I'm aware this all may be down to mechanical incompetence. The pedals are a good three years old though and have done thousands of miles in a lot of crap!)

What do you do to your kit?

My XTR rear mech is 10yrs old and severly scoured. I've had my DX pedals for 4/5years? Rear Chris King wheel is now 6years old etc etc 😉

No fookin idea. The pedal seems to have disintegrated from the inside. It's had a lot of punishment though and has worked flawlessly since I put it on.
The problem we had on the rear mech is cos it was slightly bent – got a new one coming.
Pads? Disco. Not very good in peaks grind.
Spoke? No idea again! Just desided to call it a day i guess – unless it was weakened from the chain problem.

The bearings on your pedals have given up and tightened inside the axle compartment causing the axle to unscrew from the crank. The cold weather would have exaggerated the issue also.

Was the spoke in the front or rear?

rear. i think it's been weakend by the chain jumping into it and pinged in the cold weather.
And the axle is still in the crank arm. It's just the pedal that's come off.

i think it's been weakend by the chain jumping into it and pinged in the cold weather.

You mean when we spent 20mins trying to free the chain out from under the cassette!

😳

I've had that problem with shimano pedals before. They have a lock nut at the end of the axle that preloads the bearings, bit like a cup and cone hub has at each side.

If the locknut comes loose it will unscrew from the axle, allowing the pedal body to come off while the axle stays in the crank.

Bit of a bugger really. And if your chain went over the back of the cassette that hard it has probably cut into the spokes and weakened them. wheel rebuild time probably.

That sounds like exactly what's happened. And yes, I concur with your wheel diagnosis. I'm ready for a new rear anyway I think. Going to nip to JE James tomorrow and see what they've got in the sale