Last night was the first time one of me pedals seized up and made the uni virturally unrideable…i was about 8 km’s from home.
I’m not sure i had ever greased/maintained these pedals, and last night made me realize I need to. The pedal actaully got to a point where it stopped spinning independantly of the crank, so it made riding, while technially’ feasible, quite sucky and I fell off every 20 metres or so, and I was a long way from home (so I wiped my tears from my face and called my wife to please come get me)
It would be nice to see a pedal maintenance link so people like me who don’t really do any maintenance could see the advice of someone who actually does maintenance. oh wait, here’s one http://www.londonunicyclingclub.ca/pedalbearings.htm
The author of the great how-to on pedal maintenance can’t follow his own instructions? What has this world come to?
I cleaned and re-lubed my trials (unsealed) and muni (sealed) pedals last month, following your how-to. Now they’re like new! Sealed pedals are easier to maintain 'cause you don’t have to deal with the ball bearings falling all over the place – they’re in a cartridge of sorts that you can just pop out, clean up, lube, and re-insert.
For the unsealed bearings, I tapped the bearings out into a plastic cup, spritzed a little WD-40 in the cup and swizzled the bearings around to get the old grease off 'em. Worked like a charm! Make sure to use two cups since some pedals have differently sized bearings on either side of the spindle.
Another big help was having a large pair of tweezers with which to reinsert the bearings into the pedal. No worries if you don’t have 'em, you can also use a Q-Tip that’s generously covered with grease… dip the Q-Tip in your cup of bearings and you’re guaranteed to pick up two or three.
All in all it took me about 1 1/2 hrs to do two sets of pedals, and this was the first time I’d ever done pedal maintenance. This has to be the easiest maintenance job you could possibly do on your uni, easier than changing an innertube, IMHO
Sealed or unsealed? If the pedal seized I’m guessing that they’re unsealed.
I just finished overhauling my muni today. New grease and o-rings in the pedals, new anti-seize for the cranks, and general TLC all around. It needed it. I’ve been taking it out on some wet trails. Now it’s all happy again.
I got a Coker flat recently and had to hitch a ride home. First time that’s ever happened to me. I usually don’t carry flat repair equipment for local Coker rides, and I wouldn’t want to repair a Coker flat on the side of the road anyways.
It can be a challenging and difficult thing to do. And it also can take a good amount of time. The Coker tire and tube can be ornery to get on and off an Airfoil rim. Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s not. With a stock steel Coker rim it would be almost trivial. The tire is very easy to get on and off the stock rim.
It’s much more convenient to do it at home where I have a full size pump, talc powder, silicone spray, and all my tools.
Thanks for the link. My boy was “long jumping” into some sand the other day so I have some good candidates (and now instructions) for a pedal rebuilding session.
Slime likely would have likely prevented the flat I got. It was a simple poke by a thorn. If the Slime seals fast enough you wouldn’t need to add additional air. Otherwise you may need to put a few pumps of air in.
Pity no-one told Roger about this before our 24 hour this weekend. He ended up riding the first lap with only one pedal and a pedal spindle, thanks to a pedal explosion. He was still the second of the four unicyclists to finish that lap though!
http://www.londonunicyclingclub.ca/pedalbearings.htm