Cycling UK Forum

Just speaking personally - my crank hasn't come loose and there is no creaking.

Hi,
Single speed fixed?
Fixed would be more likely to give problems if something is not quite good, using cranks in both directions.

I just thought: at least one of our bikes still has steel square taper cranks. If that starts creaking, is it likely to have rounded off the BB axle too? Usually it's expected that the aluminium crank will suffer before the steel axle.

Creaking was, in hindsight, the first sign I had that something was wrong. If I had tightened it up and possibly used threadlock then, I might not have had to replace the crank.

The new crank on my singlespeed is still working fine now. No sign of it coming loose. No creaking either.

My new bike has an 'octalink' crank. I suppose that means that I'll end up buying yet another tool of some sort.

EDIT: @Natural Ankling - my single speed is not fixed, I use a freewheel. I have twice ridden it for reasonable lengths of time on fixed, and it just doesn't seem an advantage to me. I end up swapping it back to freewheel.

Hi,
Mention of fixed was to say that the taper is forced in both directions if your legs could take the braking

My steel cranks are on the skip trainer (one of two bikes) and I have an abundance of spare cranks with aluminium arms to fit later.
I just thought I would use what I had and get the steel jobbies out of the way.
Obviously steel cranks are much more difficult to machine a taper internally, hence the poor job in my photos, first time for me.

Skip trainers are run on 100% recycled parts pulled from the tip.