I’ve read the recent discussions about repairing cotters, but I’m curious, as I just bought an old cottered schwinn cheaply, what I can do to keep my cotters from rounding out.
Can cotters withstand abuse like hopping and drops? Or should I try and avoid sharp abuse to the pedals like that?
Any other general maintanace tips for cotters would also be appreciated.
Thanks much,
Rabbidous
My old 24 is cottered. The pins themselves are very cheep. Get 1/2 dozen and sleep easy. I changed mine when I switched cranks. That’s the last I thought about them. (Taking my own advise, I still have 4).
I think too many drops will bend your cranks on an old schwinn. I don’t do drops of more than curb height on my old trusted 24.
Go easy with cottered cranks. They don’t tend to stand up to much abuse. I bent a pair of cottered cranks just trying to ride up a steep hill. There wasn’t even any hopping involved, just lots of torque.
Our last long distance offroad adventure was a fairly gentle 40km track with a little bit of single track and no drops. The cottered crank unicycle we had with us caused us no ned ofproblems. It needed to be tightened every 5km or so and eventually the cotter pin sheared off and fell out.
I would recommend limiting a cottered crank unicycle to riding around town, no steep hills, no curbs, no hopping, no dirt trails.
Oh, let me add this:
Reading peter.bier’s post reminded me…
I bought some cheep cottered cranks in a smaller size for that 24 I mentioned. I bent them ON THE VERY FIRST MOUNT!
So I put the old ones back on and all is well. They are apparently made of good old 1972 strong metal.
You get what you pay for. (Gee, seems I’ve heard that somewhere before).
yeah, that’s about what I was expecting. Thanks everyone.
-rabbidous
Re: Cotters: Care and Feeding
Hmmm…what do you think, Connie?
The answer to Cotters “Care and feeding” is obvious.
An occasional hug and the best beer in the bar!
(Bruce… Connie says “I don’t take very much abuse before breaking”)