It’s a problem for many brands of sealed bearing platform pedals, but not all. It depends on the design of the pedal. Some pedals are designed better and don’t put as much side load on the bearing as the Wellgos. Even better if the pedals are designed so that they don’t fall off the spindle of the bearing falls apart.
So yeah, its a bad pedal design problem by Wellgo and many other companies.
so…why doesn’t Wellgo make a loose bearing version of the MG-1’s?? Why is sealed better if it just falls apart? I’ve never had any problems with my loose bearing pedals and I can service them myself…
To be fair, Wellgos probably work a lot better on bikes, where they get fewer side forces and less general abuse.
okay…another question then…
how hard is it really to ride on the spindle? (i’ll have to try this sometime)
are the pedals repairable (at home) after they fall apart? (like, they just need new bearings?)
It’s hard to ride on the spindle, particularly on a MUni ride.
The failures I’ve seen have not really been repairable.
Don’t freak out about it, mine lasted a couple years at least before they blew up. But they will blow up at some point.
Failed sealed bearings are cheap to replace
You can buy a tube of 10 online for 25 $
The races on loose bearing pedals will crap the bed eventually, junking the pedal, yet it’s slow death makes them heros in many eyes.
Here’s an interesting loose bearing pedal at a good price. It comes with a grease fitting and it’s own mini grease gun. I don’t like the messy idea of greasing loose pedals by hand, but maybe this isn’t such a laborious mess.
http://aebike.com/page.cfm?PageID=30&action=details&sku=PD3104
Sealed pedals are nice since they can go longer without requiring maintenance. They also tend to spin more smoothly. Higher end pedals are generally sealed bearing style.
For trials and street riding I generally suggest using unsealed pedals since unsealed pedals can take more abuse. No need to worry about the pedal body falling off the spindle.
Fixing a sealed bearing pedal is easy. Just a matter of replacing the damaged bearing. If you carry a spare bearing with you and the proper size socket wrench for the nut inside the pedal you can fix it out on the road in just a few minutes.
Aggressive unicycle riding does put unique loads on a pedal. The Wellgo sealed pedals and other pedals with the same design do fine on bikes. I have Wellgo sealed platform pedals on my XC MTB. I switch between the platforms and clipless depending on where I’m riding. I have no worries about the Wellgos failing on my bike. I don’t trust them on a muni though.
wow…thanks for the informative replies. I’d been really scared of the wellgo’s before…but it sounds like they are decent pedals if well taken care of. And knowing the failure is on the order of years down the line…and considering that’s about how long I’ve been unicycling total…that’s not so bad.
The time to failure depends on how you ride and how often. The Wellgos could fail in less than a year if you ride aggressively enough and often enough.
I have been using Atomlab Aircorps (old style) on my muni. They use sealed bearings but have a different design than the Wellgos. They aren’t as bad on the bearings and if the bearing does catastrophically fail the pedal won’t fall off the spindle. I replace the bearings every year whether they need it or not. And I’ve still had the bearings fail on me during a muni ride. In hindsight should be replacing the bearings more often.
The newer Atomlab Aircorps use a bearingless design (they use bushings instead). The new Aircorps have their own issues. The bearings don’t fail, but the pedals can fall off the spindle now. They may no longer be a good pedal choice (at least for the current generation design).
I can tell that you’ve never ridden through London in rush hour! Chainmail is the minimum protection 
I’m sure it’d be great… if all I wanted to do is go round round-a-bouts!
I use plastic pedals for hockey, but have never found any that I really get on with. Maybe it’s because I’ve only used fairly cheap ones, but I find the main problems are grip, longevity of the bearings, and bending the axles. (Ok, I know commuting shouldn’t bend axles, but see my earlier comment about chainmail:D ) But I guess that at a tenth of the price of Magnesium ones, I could afford to replace them more often.
STM
Well i have magnesium pedals on my coker which one of the reasons for my speed record accomplishment. 
They’re good but do fade out after a while and aren’t high maintenance like people say they are. Well i don’t think they were.
ummm…what do you mean?
You guys are starting to make me nervous…don’t like the idea of the pedal falling off the axle at 30km/hr.
I’ve used the MG-1’s but I’ve actually gone back to my sealed Snafu’s. Quite a lot heavier but I like the feel of the pedals- the MG-1’s are too grippy and don’t feel as solid. I like having something more substantial underneath my foot when doing high rev’s.
He must have gotten the glow in the dark painted pedals. Those do fade out after dark.
Yeah those are the ones.
No. They’re still 700 grams, compared to 380g for the wellgos.
I like Azonic Fusion Mag, 474g apparently, and unsealed, so no worries about exploding pedals. Although that’s only 40g less than DMR V8s which I have on my other unicycle.
If you want a different lightweight pimpy pedal, DMR V12 magnesium, with a titanium axle in them are pretty pimpy and expensive, and weigh pretty low, like 350g a pair. I don’t know if they explode though.
Joe
Mine haven’t exploded yet. Have been riding on them since christmas.
I bought them just for a bit of bling (christmas pressie for my lovely uni) and when I put them on, I noticed a real difference. Like semach, I wondered whether it was just a placebo affect. Apparently not then.
Mine are siting in the box they came in! The pedals kept flying off the spindle! $100 down the drain!
These also have the advantage of a nice thin profile, so your feet are closer to the pedal’s axis of rotation. Some people like that; I’ve never tried it. They also have hex bolt holes in the pedal axle, which is potentially quite convenient: especially for riders with multihole cranks.
And they’re sealed bearings - they do run smooth.
A friend of mine has been running them on his muni; I may well try some on my 36" / 29" and see if they work well.
The BMXers in the local skate shop tell me they’ve known the Gussets stand up to a significant beating without the pedals failing. Anecdotal evidence, but still it’s comforting; makes me hope that I’m not a crazy enough rider to provoke a failure here!
unbreakable bearing design
The problem is the uni market is to small for anyone to have given us our own pedal design. We need a pedal with a sealed bearing designed to accept heavy side loads. The tapered roller bearing
http://www.vxb.com/page/bearings/CTGY/Tapered-Roller
I don’t know if there is a correct size available now or not. They are the same cost as similar sized ball bearings.
They were developed many decades ago, to solve that pesky "my wheel just fell off " problem, that became an issue more often once horsepower increased. 
