Broken crankset spindle = man down

dazz_ni45

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has even had this happen their crankset? Coming off a steep descent (circa 35mpg) and went to stand to power up a small climb and bang, down I went heavily on my shoulder and side and went skidding up the road. I thought the crank arm had come off, but the spindle had actually broken within the bottom bracket.

Thankfully nothing broken, but I've ruined a lot of kit, lost a lot of skin, got quite a few stitches and have a reoccurrence of a old muscular/ligament after I had an heavy impact on the same side a few years ago so I'm less that impressed.

The crankset is just over two years old but was only used a spare training bike so mileage would have been around 2000miles (if that).

I don't really understand what could have caused it to happen and it certainly isn't something I would expect to happen.

Does anyone have an email address for Shimano UK/Europe?

bendertherobot

Christ, that's what did it.

No experience of that side, but my mate stripped the entire front spider off the opposite side on an Ultegra chainset.

bendertherobot

shortfall

bendertherobot wrote:

Christ, that's what did it.

No experience of that side, but my mate stripped the entire front spider off the opposite side on a 105 chainset.

I did the same to a 105 Hollowtech and also an Ultegra Octalink. The second failure prompted my change in allegiance to Campagnolo.

dazz_ni45

Flip, that was some mess!

dazz_ni45

shortfall wrote:

bendertherobot wrote:

Christ, that's what did it.

No experience of that side, but my mate stripped the entire front spider off the opposite side on a 105 chainset.

I did the same to a 105 Hollowtech and also an Ultegra Octalink. The second failure prompted my change in allegiance to Campagnolo.

That's pretty worrying that it isn't as isolated as I thought.

iron-clover

Blimey- you must have been going some to do that!!
Definitely worth an e-mail to Shimano if you can find a contact address.

I've taken and Octalink crank off once (and a Tiagra hollowtech when I didn't bolt it back on properly- oops!) but never heard of their spindles breaking until now. Both times was seated as well to luckily no real dramas.

dazz_ni45

iron-clover wrote:

Blimey- you must have been going some to do that!!
Definitely worth an e-mail to Shimano if you can find a contact address.

I've taken and Octalink crank off once (and a Tiagra hollowtech when I didn't bolt it back on properly- oops!) but never heard of their spindles breaking until now. Both times was seated as well to luckily no real dramas.

Literally had just stood up to chase a guy up the short hill but wouldn't say I was hammering it. Next think I remember is the impact on my shoulder, then my head then sliding up the road then passing out.....

imposter2.0

dazz_ni45 wrote:

Does anyone have an email address for Shimano UK/Europe?

Madison will just refer you back the dealer you bought the bike from. Your contract is with the dealer, not with Shimano.

dazz_ni45

Thanks. Bought from Ribble but typically out of shimanos 2 year warranty by a few months.

To be honest I'm more interested on why it broke

N0bodyOfTheGoat

As someone who had a less dramatic weird man down incident this week, please accept my condolences!

I don't the nitty gritty, but doesn't the newish sales laws saw something along the lines of regardless of guarantee length given by a manufacturer, an item should be expected to work for a reasonable time? Is it reasonable for this component to fail after ~27 months?

meanredspider

dazz_ni45 wrote:

Thanks. Bought from Ribble but typically out of shimanos 2 year warranty by a few months.

To be honest I'm more interested on why it broke

Shimano themselves have an office at the Eindhoven High Tech Campus in NL - I'm sure you can Google it.

I wouldn't be worrying about warranty or dealers either. Scary accident - hope you recover quickly.

Failing Shimano, I'd drop by my nearest university engineering department and ask someone to take a look at it to give an opinion as to the mode of failure.

dazz_ni45

NitrousOxide wrote:

As someone who had a less dramatic weird man down incident this week, please accept my condolences!

I don't the nitty gritty, but doesn't the newish sales laws saw something along the lines of regardless of guarantee length given by a manufacturer, an item should be expected to work for a reasonable time? Is it reasonable for this component to fail after ~27 months?

Thanks and I agree totally and that's the point I'd like to make to Shimano (assuming they will care).

I don't want to be worrying everytime I put the power down but I guess it's just one of those things that could happen anytime. I just find it very strange where it actually snapped but I'm no engineer

sloppyschleckonds

dazz_ni45 wrote:

Thanks. Bought from Ribble but typically out of shimanos 2 year warranty by a few months.

To be honest I'm more interested on why it broke

Definitely pursue it with Ribble.

That shouldn't be happening and is a horrible way to crash.

dazz_ni45

sloppyschleckonds wrote:

dazz_ni45 wrote:

Thanks. Bought from Ribble but typically out of shimanos 2 year warranty by a few months.

To be honest I'm more interested on why it broke

Definitely pursue it with Ribble.

That shouldn't be happening and is a horrible way to crash.

Could have been much worse, especially if it happened on a club cycle or race. Just thankful for the kask helmet. It took a serious bang but did its job

ugo.santalucia

it happens... deal with the retailer, not with Shimano... if you cant deal with the retailer, then the next up the line is Madison UK, whose customer service is shite

meanredspider

Speaking as a manufacturer, every one I've worked for would want to know about this type of incident. It's completely different from a non-safety incident but the responsibility for safety always remains with the manufacturer. Ribble, at best, will pass it to Madison who, in turn, will pass it to Shimano. I'd always deal with the manufacturer on a safety issue.

proto

meanredspider wrote:

Ribble, at best, will pass it to Madison who, in turn, will pass it to Shimano. I'd always deal with the manufacturer on a safety issue.

Pretty sure Ribble don't by their Shimano parts from Madison.

meanredspider

proto wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Ribble, at best, will pass it to Madison who, in turn, will pass it to Shimano. I'd always deal with the manufacturer on a safety issue.

Pretty sure Ribble don't by their Shimano parts from Madison.

Ribble, Madison or anybody else who retails or distributes the product will just pass this back to Shimano.

If the OP wants a commercial claim, then by all means go to Ribble. For the safety-related stuff, I'd go straight to Shimano in NL. They may still pass you back to Ribble or Madison (as their UK. distributor) or, more likely IMO, will want to deal with this themselves.

dazz_ni45

I'm assuming that I won't really be entitled to anything since it's out of warranty so Ribble probably won't want to know.

It would be nice if at least the crankset was replaced for free as I've lost at least £600 of kit today assuming the bike frame is ok which it seems to me

meanredspider

dazz_ni45 wrote:

I'm assuming that I won't really be entitled to anything since it's out of warranty so Ribble probably won't want to know.

It would be nice if at least the crankset was replaced for free as I've lost at least £600 of kit today assuming the bike frame is ok which it seems to me

Warranty is with the manufacturer - that's above and beyond your "statutory rights". You can certainly ask Ribble to replace the crank. It's worth reading up on your rights. The first thing is to be clear what you're after.

dazz_ni45

Contacted Shimano via facebook and I just had a call from Madison. Shimano want the whole bike (wheels and everything) to be shipped back to Germany so that they can assess it and what could have caused it.

timothyw

That's good. I mean, obviously it's not great it broke, but good that they seem keen to do something about it (and will replace your damaged parts?)

bendertherobot

Get them to loan you a bike in the meantime

dazz_ni45

I had already told him that I have a few other bikes but I suppose it is worth mentioning, although I'd say it will be a few weeks or more before I'm back on a bike again!

laurentian

I'm sure there was a thread on here a few months ago referring to this specific problem with Ultegra

veronese68

dazz_ni45 wrote:

I had already told him that I have a few other bikes but I suppose it is worth mentioning, although I'd say it will be a few weeks or more before I'm back on a bike again!

Glad they are looking at it seriously. Whilst it's not unreasonable to ask for a loan bike as you have other bikes available to you probably not worth pursuing. If you are reasonable with them and explain everything I like to think you are more likely to get a bit of goodwill towards things.
First thing I thought on seeing that was if there had been any play in the bottom bracket before it happened that had allowed some movement. Not in any way saying that was to blame, I still wouldn't expect that to happen, more wondering what could have caused it. Actually that was the second thing I thought after "oh Sh!t".

meanredspider

That's good. I felt confident Shimano would take it seriously. Issues like this erode confidence in the brand incredibly quickly and, frankly, most good companies don't like people getting hurt by their products.

Please keep us posted as I'm sure many of us have wondered about our own bikes.

davesnothere

Scary stuff! Hope you heal quickly fella

Great response from Shimano, still a bit worrying though. I wouldn't say i generate a lot of power but I've got 15 stone odd bearing down on those pedals, will think twice before standing up now!

buckmulligan

Blimey, glad to hear it wasn't more serious; keep us posted on any updates! Good to see that Shimano are taking it seriously, because it does seem to be a worrying trend with the more recent 4-arm design Shimano cranksets.

To my untrained eye, it looks like a fairly straight fracture next to the bearing in that photo; is it possible that something was lodged in the bottom-bracket sleeve and gradually scored the spindle there as the cranks rotated? Or perhaps a faulty BB cup if they extend out that far?

keef66

Interesting to see the bearing located on the remains of the spindle. Was it a standard Hollowtech 2 screw-in BB (and the cup trashed by the force of the incident) or something different?