cracked kéo blade carbon spring - thoughts?

[lasrever]

ok - so i've been in the process of trying to switch from time to look - my look frame came with a set of kéo blade pedals and i figured it's time to try something new because i'm not 100% in love with the iclic.

i have maybe 300mi on the look pedals (one bike has the look, one the iclic) - today after my ride i was giving the bike a clean and noticed that the 16g carbon spring (a.k.a. the blade) on my left pedal has a crack.

it's not broken through, just part of it seems to have split - there's still an arc but a clear split:


(i shined a light on it to make it easier to see)

anyone have any experience with this?

never crashed, never raced, never even leaned on the ground.
this IS the pedal i get in and out of the most since i'm left foot down on stops/starts.
i'm heavy but only about 205 at most right now which is well below the 220 weight limit.

i'm going to call look on monday but the biggest problem is that it's sunday and next sunday is the grand fondo - need to get final miles in, etc and not sure if i can do the ship-out-wait-ship-back thing.

anyway - any thoughts?
has this happened to anyone else?

[iamtak]

I have no experience with blades, but if i absolutely had to have a set of pedals for a ride, i'd just pick up whatever are the cheapest looks around at the moment. They cant set you back much compared the the blades. Do you not have a friend or a friendly LBS that would lend you a single pedal for a day?

[James_London]

I broke a 16Nm blade in a similar fashion. Look warrantied it and it took ten minutes to replace (although I think the mechanic was a little Neanderthal with it as the Look tool wasn't available at the time).

I rode mine like that for 7 days or so - just keep training as long as you have no crazy sprinting plans! I wouldn't have raced on them but for most training, no problem.

[lasrever]

I broke a 16Nm blade in a similar fashion. Look warrantied it and it took ten minutes to replace (although I think the mechanic was a little Neanderthal with it as the Look tool wasn't available at the time).

I rode mine like that for 7 days or so - just keep training as long as you have no crazy sprinting plans! I wouldn't have raced on them but for most training, no problem.

thanks for the peace of mind, it's not sprinting but climbing that's in the cards - i'll see what i can work out with look on the phone.
yeah, the 'look tool' i'll see what i can figure out...

Do you not have a friend or a friendly LBS that would lend you a single pedal for a day?

i have a number of very very good friends at my lbs - where i do all my purchasing except for those things they cannot get easily - but because of work i will be nowhere near them until after the event.

[ricerocket]

Friend of mine did the exact same last week. He's on a loaner pedal while they process the warranty claim.

I'm guessing the damage is from stepping on it. Look expects everyone to be pedal clipping ninjas, and to never screw up the clip-in. At least TIME's carbon leaf spring has a strap over it so your main point of contact isn't jabbing the leaf spring.

[lasrever]

I'm guessing the damage is from stepping on it.

you mean it's not from my herculean strength?

i like your theory except:
1) the concave nature of the look cleat would make it difficult to directly step on the carbon leaf spring
2) totally no scuffs on the spring to suggest any physical interaction
3) while i worry about the spring being 'out there' if you touch a pedal on a corner it does generally lie beneath the spindle/body so direct pressure would be difficult
4) likely it would break in the other direction - the crack would be on the other side if it were from being pushed down by the cleat

honestly i remember a point on a climb when my left pedal suddenly had some more play - wonder if that was the point of failure.

[Geoff]

I can't imagine that any Look dealer (or the LBS where you bought that bike) would not swap that out on-the-spot and deal with Look directly itself.

[dolophonic]

Had it happen .They will warranty it.

[jmilliron]

Seems very foolish to ride that pedal in an event that you want to finish.

[ricerocket]

The carbon would break on that side because you'd break the weaken that side first with any abrasion, cutting, etc, and only until it's stressed will the spring fail.

That said, it still looks like a bonding failure as well...there's some pretty bad layer separation in that spring.

[stella-azzurra]

Hmm I would of not made that part out of carbon in the first place. Carbon is not meant to bend like that. I'll bet that the next version won't include that carbon part like that.

[metanoize]

The blade on my right pedal has a crack! I moved to the blades from the iclic, whose cleats I broke after 3 rides. These are terrible fragile products, not very well thought out or field tested. I'm now moving to the dura ace 7900.

[MMMhills]

It appears the Keo Blade needed a bit more testing.

I have the 12n Ti and after 187 miles my spindle bearings are grinding and very loose. I got them as a gift and do not have the receipt. Look told me that they would not warranty them without a reciept. I am in the process of finding out where they were bought and have to call the dealer to see if they will do anything. pretty piss poor customer service if you ask me.

[shadwell]

Mine still fine after thousands of kays and many hundreads of entry / exists... does that mean they have been tested sufficiently then ?!?!?!?

Sucks that they failed but it does not mean that the design is flawed.. it may mean that production variance and insufficient process control allowed a faulty part into the market though....

I do however agree that LOOK warranty support is a struggle, often forcing cutomers to leap through hoops to get very straight forward cases resolved...

Re the bearings being loose... well there is alot of info on how to manage that.....try packing the pedal with grease when new to better support eh needle bearings... check it out on search...

Good luck with the warranty support...

[lasrever]

talked with look today - yes of course they will warranty.
they want both pedals as they want to inspect what's what.

pedals have to go back - which was the whole crux of the problem since i would like to do the fondo on them but not sure if that's possible.

ok, so some of the stuff brought up - i'm not sure we can say that carbon should or should not be used in this manner - just look at the chevrolet corvette - it uses carbon fiber leaf springs and those have to handle a great deal more stress than anything we're going to be able to put into a pedal.

these have failed very gracefully - in fact i cannot pinpoint exactly when they might have broken - i have felt secure and been able to ride un-interrupted on them for about 150 miles sine the point i am guessing was the failure.

time iclic - i actually have had no problems with the cleats but with the pedals themselves - with the exception of the very expensive ones it seems the pedal bodies are made of softer stuff than the cleats - there is noticeable and appreciable (extra wiggle on engagement) wear to the pedal bodies themselves after one season.

pedal bearings - let's be honest, these are always iffy - look at the speedplay threads, or other look/time/etc. threads - we're asking a lot in terms of load but don't want to pay the weight penalty.

testing?
this is france we're talking about, right?
(i grew up in paris so don't flame me, it's a joke)

wear/abrasion/etc.
none - trust me - if there weren't the separation it'd look new.

anyway - because of work and other factors that became clear today the fondo may not be an issue at all - i'll keep riding the time equipped bike for the moment and send these in for warranty - hopefully won't take 2 1/2 years to get them back like happened to my 585.