Today I noticed a click in my left pedal (of my Semcycle 24"), about
when it is in power position (once per revolution). I can hear it and
feel it. I stopped immediately to check my (cotterless) crank but it
seemed 100% tight. There was a LITTLE bit of play in the pedal, not
more than I should consider normal. The pedal rotated OK.
I have been practicing quite some backward riding lately, but during
that I do as much forward as backward. And then again, if the pedal
loosens from backward riding, shouldn’t it fix itself when riding only
forward? The click didn’t go away when riding home (forward).
With little force on the left pedal (good exercise for later
one-footed learning) there was no click (or softly only, when applying
a bit more force).
At home I checked with a wrench, but both pedal threads were tight
enough I think.
What can it be?
Klaas Bil
P.S. A reason to buy another unicycle: to have a spare one if your
bread-and-butter one fails while the weather is as fantastic as it is
now. - KB
“To trigger/fool/saturate/overload Echelon, the following has been picked automagically from a database:”
“2EME REP, Type II, FCIC”
One of the pedal ball bearings is bad or the pedal bearing races are out of adjustment. They usually click when too loose and grind when too tight. The last time I had an intermittent pedal click, I opened up the bearings to clean and regrease the balls and one of them had split neatly in half.
>When that happens to me, it usually turns out to be my shoelace
>hitting the spokes. :^)
Doesn’t that sound like a huge alarm bell then:
DING! DING! DANGER OF FALLING!!
Klaas Bil
“To trigger/fool/saturate/overload Echelon, the following has been picked automagically from a database:”
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>One of the pedal ball bearings is bad or the pedal bearing races are out
>of adjustment. They usually click when too loose and grind when too
>tight. The last time I had an intermittent pedal click, I opened up the
>bearings to clean and regrease the balls and one of them had split
>neatly in half.
Since it’s a really localised click I don’t think it is bad adjustment
of the bearing races. Also, I would expect that to have come in
gradually over days or at least hours. This was suddenly there.
The pedals have taken quite some abuse from upd’s while learning to
ride backwards (on asphalt), so it makes sense that a ball is broken.
I think the pedal including bearing has to be replaced then? That
means I can ride on for now without increasing the damage
(financially).
Klaas Bil
“To trigger/fool/saturate/overload Echelon, the following has been picked automagically from a database:”
“Ali Saed Bin Ali El-Hoorie, Cherokee, redheads”
Don’t worry Klaas Bill, i had the same problem. Both pedals on my Savage 20" clicked really bad. At first, it was the cottered cranks, but when i got new pins and it contiued to creak. I thought the pedals were just pieces of [four letter word goes here], but it turned out the the pedals themselves were coming unscrewed from the cranks. An interesting problem, to be sure, but easily fixed by taking it to the bike shop and having the tighten it for you. You could probably do it yourself with a crescent wrench, but shops carry a special wrench designed for tightening pedals. So, if this is truly the problem, just have the bike shop tighten it with their wrench or find someone who has one.
This has happened to me many a times & usually it’s the bearings going bad
in my pedal. Eventually, the pedal flips or sticks in such a way causing me
to fall or dismount gracefully. Then of course people think you can’t ride
the darn thing. Depending on the quality and access to the bearings of the
pedal you might try to lubricate/clean them if you don’t want to buy new ones.
i’m not sure if this is relevant here
i recently received a warning from another unicycle to shift my feet slightly onto the crank while hopping with the pedals in the horizontal position
the rationale being that hopping on the pedals alone could cause damage to the thread in the crank-head
i’d like some feedback on this
was this a warning i should heed?
could this be the origin of the problem discussed here?
I have a normal wrench with which I can tighten the pedals
sufficiently. So I think I can exclude loose pedals as the cause for
my clicking.
I had a Semcycle engineer look at the problem today and he confirmed
that is is the pedal bearing. I bought another pedal for about $5
(Semcycles come with a life-long right to replace most defective parts
at half price). I mounted it tonight but due to darkness and lack of
time haven’t ridden it yet. But I assume it’s solved.
>
>Don’t worry Klaas Bill, i had the same problem. Both pedals on my
>Savage 20" clicked really bad. At first, it was the cottered cranks,
>but when i got new pins and it contiued to creak. I thought the pedals
>were just pieces of [four letter word goes here], but it turned out the
>the pedals themselves were coming unscrewed from the cranks. An
>interesting problem, to be sure, but easily fixed by taking it to the
>bike shop and having the tighten it for you. You could probably do it
>yourself with a crescent wrench, but shops carry a special wrench
>designed for tightening pedals. So, if this is truly the problem, just
>have the bike shop tighten it with their wrench or find someone who has
>one.
>
>Cheers,
>
>
>–
>JonnyD - uni-stud
>
>-Jon Davis-
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“To trigger/fool/saturate/overload Echelon, the following has been picked automagically from a database:”
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I’m also interested in feedback here. I think I didn’t mention that I
have been hopping quite a lot in the last few weeks, and I never did
it before. The thread in the crank head seemed OK though when I
swapped the old pedal for the new one. But hopping with the feet
partly on the crank should also relieve stresses on the pedal
bearings. I’m a little bit worried though that I can’t get my feet on
and off the cranks; have to try.
>
>i’m not sure if this is relevant here
>i recently received a warning from another unicycle to shift my feet
>slightly onto the crank while hopping with the pedals in the horizontal
>position
>the rationale being that hopping on the pedals alone could cause damage
>to the thread in the crank-head
>i’d like some feedback on this
>was this a warning i should heed?
>could this be the origin of the problem discussed here?
>
>namaste
>dave
>
>
>–
>GILD
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“To trigger/fool/saturate/overload Echelon, the following has been picked automagically from a database:”
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