I’ve been doing a fair bit of crank grabbing lately so there are now some spots on my right crank with no paint. To my horror I found some rust there yesterday! Do many of you have rusty cranks? What have you been doing to stop the rust. Is there something you can keep spraying on (I’m assuming you’d have to keep applying it) to prevent rust? To remove the rust that’s there now do I just carefully sand it off?
Thanks,
Andrew
I have some rust on my left crank, and also don’t know what to do about it. I imagine it’s just surface rust, and totally superficial. I’m inclined to say don’t stress, it’s okay, but I really don’t know.
what you should do: (becuase it is most likely just surface rust)
You know what scotch bright pads are? Like the plastic scrapy things for your teflon pots? get one just for your uni’s.
Spray it with WD-40 and scrub your crank. It’ll come right off
Re: Crank rusting…
Buy Stainless Steel, Titanium or Aluminum Cranks, they will not rust.
The cheaper method would be to do as Sofa says, use the scotch bright pads, but I would recommend steel wool. It will scrub off the surface rust, then you can repaint it with a good quality spray paint. Also, keeping the crank polished with a car wax, even on the bare metal areas, will help to prevent rust.
Rust is ugly, but on a crank, it probably won’t get so deep that it compromises it’s integrity. --chirokid–
I recommend doing a little bit of grinding on a regular basis. This should replace most of your rust with shiny, exposed steel! 
If you do that to steel, it’s going to rust. A rusty crank won’t be any weaker (unless you wait many years), it’s just cosmetic damage.
In the states we have a product called Naval Jelly that dissolves rust, but if you leave steel untreated it will continue to rust.
Rust on a unicycle, like blood on a unicyclist, is a sign of machismo. You’re a lege, mate.