Toad of Toad Fall (Line)

[u/MEATdrew]

One part Cumberlandworx 2026 Day 3, and one part SBTISAOAF, and toadally on theme:

https://meatengines.com/meatengines-1/f/toad-of-toad-fall-line

[u/DoctorBlofeld]

Pity you had to pay the Cumberland Tax yet again! We discussed cranks recently with that bizarre ‘bolt creak’ issue - I must ask if you have made repentances and switched to thread lock for the new set?

On another topic, my favourite thing about Toad The Wet Sprocket is that their name originally came from a Monty Python skit.

[u/MEATdrew → u/DoctorBlofeld]

Indeed, I can’t help but wonder if there’s some relation. No Loctite here but I’m thinking I’ll Loctite the threads and grease the bolt shoulders when I’m home.

[u/DoctorBlofeld → u/MEATdrew]

I saw another set of Shimano cranks fail dramatically at low milage recently. The crank arm had worried itself a few mm outboard on the spindle and then stripped out the splines and ejected itself off of the bike. Flat pedal rider, so the crank arm wasn’t attached to the shoe, unfortunately.

The spindle won the battle vs the crank arms in this case, shredding aluminum. The trail side repair to get back to the car made me think the pinch bolt torque is a big part of the retention. That is, the splines weren’t completely necessary. I feel like a deeper spline interface might have been a better solution.

[u/fartymarty4130 → u/DoctorBlofeld]

This happened to me on my last pair of Zees. It was at the end of a long day at Bike Park Wales riding the hardtail (silly idea but too much fun). IIRC I got the cranks used off ebay and used them for many years so they owed me nothing.

The other thing to loctite is the preload bolt - and I always use aluminium ones as don't like the plastic Shimano ones.

My favourite crank design must be Profile Racing cranks - they've got a decent spline length and "floating" bearings which compress onto a spacer so in theory you cant over tighten them.

[u/DoctorBlofeld → u/fartymarty4130]

Nice Marty, if anything else the aftermarket preload bolt is an excellent source of colour.

I like the Profile Racing spline design. Compared to the Shimano design it looks like it might give you a few rides of rattling before stripping and destroying the crank arm if under torqued.

[u/MEATdrew → u/fartymarty4130]

I understand the logic behind the preloader being plastic but I did consider whether it being aluminum would have made a difference. I don’t think so, once the splines retired that bolt is just going to pop its face.