Well, I say fall apart, actually the axle snapped. I’ve had them getting a bit loose on me but this was something else:

Bought from CRC back in March.

Was on the commute, up on the pedals on the flat trying to get to the station on time when it just snapped, I went sideways and across the road on my forearm, hip and backside. No serious injuries but I’ve now holes in a pair of armwarmers and my favourite merino baselayer 🙁 . Could have been sooo much worse, luckily the lorry following was doing the speed limit and left enough rooom so avoided me bouncing across the road and stopped to see whether I was ok.

(and no, I’m not a big lad – 5″10 and about 12.5 stone)

Now – who knows the contact details for the UK distributor for Crank Bros? Much as I’m loathe to replace like for like my knees only seem to get on with their pedals so need to hunt out a warranty replacement. Or maybe that’s not a good idea, hmmm….

its ran at 2pure is it not? He does post on here sometimes

http://www.2pure.co.uk/Crank-Brothers/Crank-Brothers-Wheels

that’s the fellow – I’ll drop him an email though I think maybe CRC should be my first port of call.

<limps off to have another cuppa>

just keep thinking of what would have happened if it’d have failed on the ride home – it’s all very well at 4:15am when there’s pretty much no traffic. The current commute back from the station is either bumper-to-bumper town traffic or 60mph country roads. Has put the fear of god into me a bit…

serves you right for wearing arm warmers 😀

I think I’d be switching pedal brands. Time are knee friendly and seem to last.

CRC should be my first port of call

yes.

what condition is the other pedal in? are the bearing loose?

This is a familiar story.

Crank Brothers make an appallingly short-lived product, which is only slightly rescued by great customer service from 2Pure.

See my post below for why I’ve now switched back to SPDs.

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

what condition is the other pedal in? are the bearing loose?

Fine. Bearings are ok, slight amount of play but I’ve had Crank Bros pedals that have been much, much worse. Does it matter? (Confused?)

no, I just wondered if the bushing/bearing had siezed and that had put a lot of extra stress on the axle was all.

I use CB pedals and always been happy with them – the only pair I ever had an issue with were some acids where I had bearing failure after only a few miles and the pedals were replaced by CRC/2Pure very quickly.

Does sound like you were unlucky the axle went and then lucky the results weren’t worse…

If you rode a bike with proper size wheels you’d be better off 😉

Strikes me as something is seriously wrong for this to happen. Wrong grade of material, wrong heat treatment, wrong machining, or am I wrong?

If you rode a bike with proper size wheels you’d be better off

Sounds like between the wheels and the armwarmers I got what I deserved 🙂

(actually, no-one’d be happier if Airnimal designed a 26″ wheel bike, the 24″s are a decent compromise but a complete PITA to get decent tyres for. Maxxis Locusts are good, ditto Schwalbe Duranos but they’re often impossible to track down)

Same old same old with Crank Bros stuff (IMHO), looks great – doesn’t last – stopped buying ages ago

I used to use crank bros (mallets and candys) for knee reasons but the continual overhauling was irritating and expensive and far too frequent for me to believe they had been designed properly.

So I switched to Time about 2 years ago and haven’t done a spot of maintenance since, nor felt the need to. Time – all the benefits, none of the disadvantages.

Shimano/Time FTW. You’ve got to have confidence in your kit.

In over 10 years of riding shimano spd’s i’ve never serviced one or had one break on me. And I’ve still got a pair of ten year old ones on my commuter bike

You do 60 on an Airnimal on country lanes!

Try these:

Ti Spindles

Apparently surplus Ti from the Raptor programme! 🙂

I snapped a set in the same way. Wasn’t spectacular though. I just pulled up, put my foot down and found I had a pedal stuck to it.

its ran at 2pure is it not? He does post on here sometimes

Every time someone breaks a Crank brothers pedal. 😉

I’ve snapped two, luckily both times at low speed while in the saddle.
I now use Ward Industries titanium spindles.

You do 60 on an Airnimal on country lanes!

No! My recorded top speed is 42mph on the Airnimal 🙂

On the local rural roads people tend to throw their cars around at daft speeds. If it’d happened later / on the way home / at certain places I’d have been toast…

i snapped a candy sl pedal stainless spindle in half in the same way. there was absolutely no play in them. put a gouge in the side of my MT90 goretex boots. 😕
just lucky it didn’t cut my calf open.
Ran from 2pure replaced them, which was very kind, but i flogged ’em no way was i going to have confidence in them any more.
am running times now. same function. happy with them.