Look Pedal Axle breakage - Non Keo recall related

[titans]

Other than the known Look Keo pedal recall, were there any recalls on the Look A5.1 pedals? These pedals were produced right before the Keos. As you can see from the pics I snapped mine off clean. No jagged edges at all. One cracked helmet, 30 minutes of memory loss, and 8 hospital tests later and I still don't remember falling or getting up and standing on the side of the road. Any metalurgist out there? If I blacked out would the off the saddle pedal stroke produce enough force to break the axle as my foot hit the ground? The hospital tests basically ruled out my blacking out but wanted to get everyone's opinion. Or did it just snap off, I hit my head (cracked helmet) and just lost memory of everything leading up to the fall and 30 minutes after. Pedals had 16k miles on them and i'm 165lbs. I've been riding 6-7k miles a year for the past 15 years and have no health related issues. If you have these pedals please take this message to heart and get yourself another pedal. No amount of inspection would have surfaced this since the break occurred inside the pedal body. No creaks either but this is the side I click in/out of if that makes any difference. Thoughts?

[Louis]

An experienced failure analyst should have no problem at all telling you if this was due to a one-time static overload or due to a fatigue failure induced by poor desigh (e.g. high Kt) or poor metal (inclusion) or prior damage or cyclic overload. Each of those scenarios has very characteristic patterns visible under magnification. (and sometimes visible at low magnification)

Good Luck
Louis

[fourflys]

A buddy of mine had a similar accident caused by a dog last fall. He cracked his helmet as well and has no memory of when he went down or about an hour afterwards.... Kind of scary to think what would have happend had he not had a helmet on!

[Elmer]

I too, had a breakage just like yours. Thankfully, it was on a spin bike and not out on the open road. I took the pair to my local bike shop and they sent them to Look for a full replacement (current KEO Sprint model).

[mhering]

Titans

I had the same thing happen to me yesterday. I just made a post on it in the forum. As you say, no warning at all. My pedal just snapped off.

I did not black out, so I can tell you that the pedal failure caused my crash, not the other way around. Your pedal looks exactly the same and I suspect the same is true for you.

Michael

[titans]

Glad you're okay and didn't sustain something more serious. Below is my latest update with Look.

I called Look, spoke with a rep, gave them my accident, and was told that another person would call me the next day. Another rep called the next day and I reiterated my accident to him. I told him I was more concerned with the well being of other cyclists throughout the country who may be in danger riding these pedals than to make a warranty claim. He said there were no defects with my particular model but offerred to warranty my pedals under the Keo recall program and all out of pocket medical expenses. Well my hospital bill came this past week and now I know why medical coverage is so darn expensive in the U.S. Bill was over $14k! They gave me an EKG, chest xray, MRI, MRA (neck), CT scan, echo cardio gram, stress test and EEG. All came back negative but I have residual double vision that is ever so slowly going away. I have not yet received the bill from my opthamologist and he recommended a neuro opthamologist if my double vision lingers. So far i'm on the hook for $72 thank goodness but Look is getting off easy on this one I think. I can understand them saying that there is inherent risk with cycling products but a 1/2 inch thick chromoly axle? Snapping a chain yes but an axle? I think i'll be adding pedals to my list of products to change every 2-3 years now just like handlebars, stems and anything that is stressed and torque'd.

BTW, when I woke up the morning after in my hospital bed the first thing I saw was the news caption on Natasha Richardson in critical condition after a fall on a bunny slope. Sadly we all know what happened to her but how cruel fate is to some and lucky for others. The spot she hit was about 1 inch above where I got hit. I also turned down my daughter's plea for an ambulance and by the time I did go it was almost 4 hours later. Very thankful to be alive!

Take care out there!