amy_martin•3d agoRising Star

That Tuesday when every single bike came in with stripped pedals

I swear it was like a curse. I work at a shop in Portland and last spring I had 7 bikes come in on the same day, all with pedal threads messed up. One was a kid's bike where the dad used a wrench on the wrong side, two were from people who swapped pedals without grease, and the rest were just old and corroded. I spent hours with taps and helicoils. Worst part was one customer argued with me saying 'I just tightened it normal'. Has anyone else had a day where the same problem keeps showing up one after another?

3 comments

3 Comments

emma_garcia3d ago

My buddy runs a shop down in Eugene and he had this exact thing happen but with bottom brackets. Like 5 bikes in one afternoon all with creaky or loose bottom brackets. The wild part was one guy came in complaining his bike felt wobbly and it turned out he'd been riding with the crank arm barely hanging on. My friend said he just kept pulling bikes off the stand and finding the same broken threads or corrosion over and over. He ended up staying late just to helicoil three of them because the frames were aluminum and the threads were totally gone. By the end of the day he texted me a picture of all the old bottom brackets lined up on the counter like a weird trophy collection.

baker.christopher3d ago

Did he say whether those bikes were all the same brand or if they came from different manufacturers? I'm wondering if it was a bad batch of something or just a coincidence that they all showed up at once. Seems like a weird pattern worth tracking if you see that many in a single day.

paul_ramirez2d ago

Haha that's wild, bottom bracket season I guess! I had something similar happen a few years back with headsets, like four bikes in one week all with the same crunchy, pitted bearings. Must have been a bad batch from the same supplier or something because they were all from different brands but failed the exact same way.