Cottered Cranks with Fixed Gear

In article
.com,
"maxo" wrote:

They're not a PITA to take apart either, unless somebody's
over-tightened the cotters. Soak the area with penetrating lube before
trying to undo 50 y/o cotters. If you do have to drill them out, you
can buy new cotter pins.

I will add here to soak overnight with a penetrating
lubricant. This is a general rule. Whenever I want to work
on a years old fastener I add the penetrating oil and
leave it for 24 hours.

--
Michael Press

"maxo" wrote in message
ups.com...
As they say on Car Talk, "Somebody needs to make a boat payment."

Other than being a bit heavy, cottered cranks are refreshingly durable,
handsome, and mechanically straight-forward. Keep them--and get some
slot cleated shoes and wool shorts just to spite those bike shop
jagoffs. :P

Only reason to replace would be if the chainring's worn, but
steel/chrome rings last virtually forever.


I have been using cottered Raleigh cranks for years on both my fixed gear
and coaster brake rain bike. After several thousand miles on each the only
problem I have is that I wore out the bottom bracket on the rain bike and am
having a hard time finding a replacement spindle.

The bike shop you went to is wrong on this topic but that does not make them
all bad. The local shop here that gives me tremendous service on my cottered
bikes is not the place I take my Campagnolo 10s for service. I am sure there
are shops that do both well but I have not found one yet.

Dave Reckoning
Noblesville, IN

Werehatrack wrote:

At best, unnecessarily cautious. Any concern that such cranks are
sudden-failure-prone when there is reverse pressure involved is
unfounded in my opinion.

Amen. there is no greater example of reverse pressure than a sprinter
doing a track stand.
Phil Brown

On Wed, 09 Nov 2005 21:48:17 -0800, oh.jeff wrote:

I have recently come into posession of a 1950's Raleigh Lenton that was
converted into a fixed gear somewhere around the early 80's. My LBS
has given it the once over, but advised me to change the original steel
cottered cranks as soon as possible, on the grounds that they would
invevitably fly apart at an intersection forthwith, especially on a
fixed gear bike.

Horse****. How did we ever survive back in the days when millions of
bikes had cottered cranks.

Are the cottered cranks truly a ticking time bomb, or is the LBS being
unnecessarily cautious here?

Cottered cranks are a PITA to work on, since you have to drive out and
replace the cotters to pull the crank arm. They don't want to be
bothered, plus they want to sell you something.

OTOH, aluminum cranks are a lot lighter. But there is a cool factor to
the steel cranks.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | You will say Christ saith this and the apostles say this; but
_`\(,_ | what canst thou say? -- George Fox.
(_)/ (_) |