Was skeptical about using a torque wrench on my bike pedals. Now I think I was wrong.

For years I just hand tightened my pedals on my old Trek mountain bike and never had issues. Figured torque wrenches were overkill for bike stuff, more for car engines and such. Then last month I snapped a pedal spindle right off on a hard climb near Cheyenne. The LBS guy said I probably over tightened it over time and caused metal fatigue. He showed me the spec is like 12-15 Nm which is way lower than my gorilla arms. Bought a cheap beam style torque wrench for like 35 bucks and now I actually check. The other side of me still thinks it's overkill for casual riding and just being careful is enough. Anyone else had a part fail from over torquing or am I just unlucky?

2 comments

2 Comments

danielr992d ago

Wait, have you ever seen a 200 pound guy try to pedal up a hill on a bike he just hand-tightened? I snapped a pedal spindle clean off on a rainy ride, flew forward, and my bike hit a parked car. Ngl, that embarrassment alone made me buy a torque wrench. Honestly, I still think there's a sweet spot with hand tightening - you need enough grunt but not so much you turn the crank into a pretzel. But after that incident, I'll stick with a little tool telling me I'm not a human gorilla. Tbh, torque wrenches are probably the only reason my pedals stay on now, not my ego.

sean_barnes242d ago

Hand tightening is honestly fine 99% of the time if you know what you're doing. My buddy has been wrenching on bikes for 20 years without a torque wrench and his pedals have never exploded on him. Sounds like you might have just gotten a bad pedal or cross threaded it without realizing it. Most crank arm threads can handle way more abuse than people give them credit for, and a lot of the torque specs manufacturers give are just lawyer proofing anyway.