A customer called to say that the pedal body on a LOOK Kéo Blade Carbon with a titanium shaft and ceramic bearings had suddenly cracked, and asked if there was anything I could do about it.
I told them that if they could show me the actual pedal, there might be a chance of fixing it, and suggested they bring it by if they were nearby. Turns out the customer is in Kyushu, so I ended up having them send just the cracked pedal.
As I've written before (here), the current Kéo Blade Carbon titanium shaft models come in three versions:
• Chromoly shaft + steel ball bearings
• Chromoly shaft + ceramic bearings
• Titanium shaft + ceramic bearings
Because you have to go through the ceramic bearing option to get the titanium shaft, it's extremely expensive.
So the customer's initial idea was to source a used chromoly shaft + steel ball bearing pedal, and then transplant the titanium shaft (with ceramic bearings) into it.
As this post will detail, I suspected the titanium and chromoly shafts might have different thread depths on the pedal body side, so transplantation might not be possible. But I went ahead anyway.
I received the damaged pedal. Over the phone I didn't mention anything, but it turned out this was a customer I'd already dealt with several times on wheels. In cases like this, it really helps if they say something like "I'm [so-and-so] from [prefecture]." But it's fine either way.
The pedal tip has all the specs printed on it: Kéo Blade, Carbon, Ceramic, Titanium—quite a stacked list of attributes.
The pedal body was cracked. There were no scuff marks from a crash or impact around the area. When I asked the customer, they said "The binding suddenly became very weak, and when I looked closely, I realized it had cracked without me noticing."
I use various Kéo pedal models in the shop—or rather, I personally do. With long-term use, one side will noticeably wear more than the other; for example, if one starts making noise or the rotation gets gritty, sometimes I'll attempt a pedal shaft swap, or other times I'll just hang onto pedals that have the same stack height but are in better condition, hoping that eventually I might find matching left and right pairs. The image above shows some of these accumulated pedals.
Not only does the pedal stack height need to match, but the pedal shaft fixing system also has to be the same. Removing and installing pedal shafts usually requires a specialized tool. The three types in the image above all have different mechanisms.
↑This one looks like it might work.
There's a memo on the platform that says "noise." Noise can come from either wear on the pedal shaft bearing or wear on the non-replaceable needle roller bearing inside the pedal body, or excessive wear on the rear cleat where the shoe drifts slightly back and forth. That's about it.
So I'm thinking that if I can transplant the pedal shaft successfully, the noise should go away.
The "Carbon" listed in the pedal tip specs refers to the fact that the pedal's leaf spring is carbon. You might think I'm stating the obvious, but there are budget Kéo models with metal springs (Kéo 2 MAX and above, down to below Kéo Blade Carbon) that use a laminated composite material leaf spring without the carbon pattern. The "Carbon" designation is there to distinguish this pedal from those cheaper models.
There's a cheap Kéo Blade model with a default spring tension of 8, the weakest setting. I once thought about getting one and fitting it with a carbon spring rated for tension 20 (the strongest) to get a cheap tension-20 pedal. But it turned out the spring thickness on the budget model was thicker, and since the pedal groove width was adjusted for that, there was no compatibility between springs.
This pedal's shaft assembly uses five splines, but...
↑you use a specialized tool like this.
On the opposite side there's a 6 mm hex key socket. You fix the hex key in a vise, put the tool over it, and hold the pedal body with both hands and turn with considerable force... well, actually you don't need to force it that hard. You can loosen or tighten it by holding the pedal in one hand and the tool-fitted hex key in the other.
I removed the shaft from my own pedal.
↑This is the cracked pedal, but there's a cap on the hole where the pedal shaft passes through. It has three notches that look like they'd need a specialized tool, suggesting the threads are set a certain way, but it's really just a press-fit earplug-like part. However, an O-ring is seated inside it and it's quite deep, so while it might be possible to extract it with a thin-bladed flathead screwdriver—like extracting a snail from its shell—there will definitely be scratches.
I removed the one from my pedal. The method was to insert a long rod through the hole left by the shaft and simply push from the back.
The needle roller bearing inside this pedal body is not replaceable.
I also removed the pedal shaft from the titanium version. The thread length looks different.
But the depth is the same. Looking more closely, I notice that the titanium shaft version has...
...an O-ring at the root—not that the threads aren't cut there, but rather an O-ring is fitted in. This I didn't know before. I've done pedal shaft swaps with this system before, both with chromoly and titanium, but I always thought the titanium had shorter threads. I also wondered if maybe the chromoly had an O-ring that I broke initially, but I didn't remember it being there. I checked every pedal of this type that I have on hand (all chromoly shaft versions), and none of them have O-rings. Combined with my memory that "titanium shafts have shorter threads," I'm now thinking O-rings are only fitted to titanium shaft versions.
↑The bearing seal on the right side of the image is the brown one from my chromoly shaft. The rotation is clearly rough, and since this is likely the main source of the noise, the needle roller bearing itself seems fine. So I'm going to swap the pedal shaft.
I transplanted the O-ring to my former pedal (←the moment I added "former").
Weight difference between the chromoly and titanium shafts.
This generation of Kéo Blade Carbon also has spare rear cleat parts available, and I have inventory of the same strength carbon spring as well.
But I didn't feel the need to replace anything this time, so I didn't.
The rear cleat is held on with a Torx bolt and threaded into the shaft.
With such a small Torx driver/hex key, presumably out of consideration that you wouldn't have two of the same size, the crank side is T8 (T9 will catch but shallowly), while the outer side is T10. I've already loosened it a bit in the photo.
I removed the rear cleat fixing shaft.
This bolt looks like it should be replaced, so I'll swap it out.
The tip of the pedal on the underside—where the leaf spring sits—has a groove, but this groove's vertical width is different between the carbon spring model and the cheaper laminated spring model, which is why they're not compatible.
Earlier I said I wouldn't replace the rear cleat, but...
...the former pedal's looks a bit better, so I've decided to swap it in. The original rear cleat is still usable, so I'll return it to the customer.
When threading the rear cleat shaft, you have to hold down the carbon spring with hand pressure while doing it, otherwise...
...the holes in the pedal body and rear cleat won't line up and the shaft won't pass through. But...
↑there's this kind of weird CO₂ cartridge-like specialized tool,
which has a rounded tip that's slightly smaller in diameter than the shaft, so...
it passes through easily... Though actually, without this tool, even with spring tensions of 16 or 20, it passes through pretty easily anyway.
I've made a matching pair by combining the two pedals. One thing I forgot to mention: if you apply too much grease inside the pedal body, the rotation gets sluggish and the rear cleat won't spin smoothly into the catch position, making it harder to engage. This time I just applied a small amount of fluorine-based oil inside. The pedal shaft rotation is extremely smooth with no roughness. There's no lateral play. It spins into the catch-friendly position with a light flip. I'd say it's sufficient as a makeshift solution.
I told them that if they could show me the actual pedal, there might be a chance of fixing it, and suggested they bring it by if they were nearby. Turns out the customer is in Kyushu, so I ended up having them send just the cracked pedal.
As I've written before (here), the current Kéo Blade Carbon titanium shaft models come in three versions:
• Chromoly shaft + steel ball bearings
• Chromoly shaft + ceramic bearings
• Titanium shaft + ceramic bearings
Because you have to go through the ceramic bearing option to get the titanium shaft, it's extremely expensive.
So the customer's initial idea was to source a used chromoly shaft + steel ball bearing pedal, and then transplant the titanium shaft (with ceramic bearings) into it.
As this post will detail, I suspected the titanium and chromoly shafts might have different thread depths on the pedal body side, so transplantation might not be possible. But I went ahead anyway.
I received the damaged pedal. Over the phone I didn't mention anything, but it turned out this was a customer I'd already dealt with several times on wheels. In cases like this, it really helps if they say something like "I'm [so-and-so] from [prefecture]." But it's fine either way.
The pedal tip has all the specs printed on it: Kéo Blade, Carbon, Ceramic, Titanium—quite a stacked list of attributes.
The pedal body was cracked. There were no scuff marks from a crash or impact around the area. When I asked the customer, they said "The binding suddenly became very weak, and when I looked closely, I realized it had cracked without me noticing."
I use various Kéo pedal models in the shop—or rather, I personally do. With long-term use, one side will noticeably wear more than the other; for example, if one starts making noise or the rotation gets gritty, sometimes I'll attempt a pedal shaft swap, or other times I'll just hang onto pedals that have the same stack height but are in better condition, hoping that eventually I might find matching left and right pairs. The image above shows some of these accumulated pedals.
Not only does the pedal stack height need to match, but the pedal shaft fixing system also has to be the same. Removing and installing pedal shafts usually requires a specialized tool. The three types in the image above all have different mechanisms.
↑This one looks like it might work.
There's a memo on the platform that says "noise." Noise can come from either wear on the pedal shaft bearing or wear on the non-replaceable needle roller bearing inside the pedal body, or excessive wear on the rear cleat where the shoe drifts slightly back and forth. That's about it.
So I'm thinking that if I can transplant the pedal shaft successfully, the noise should go away.
The "Carbon" listed in the pedal tip specs refers to the fact that the pedal's leaf spring is carbon. You might think I'm stating the obvious, but there are budget Kéo models with metal springs (Kéo 2 MAX and above, down to below Kéo Blade Carbon) that use a laminated composite material leaf spring without the carbon pattern. The "Carbon" designation is there to distinguish this pedal from those cheaper models.
There's a cheap Kéo Blade model with a default spring tension of 8, the weakest setting. I once thought about getting one and fitting it with a carbon spring rated for tension 20 (the strongest) to get a cheap tension-20 pedal. But it turned out the spring thickness on the budget model was thicker, and since the pedal groove width was adjusted for that, there was no compatibility between springs.
This pedal's shaft assembly uses five splines, but...
↑you use a specialized tool like this.
On the opposite side there's a 6 mm hex key socket. You fix the hex key in a vise, put the tool over it, and hold the pedal body with both hands and turn with considerable force... well, actually you don't need to force it that hard. You can loosen or tighten it by holding the pedal in one hand and the tool-fitted hex key in the other.
I removed the shaft from my own pedal.
↑This is the cracked pedal, but there's a cap on the hole where the pedal shaft passes through. It has three notches that look like they'd need a specialized tool, suggesting the threads are set a certain way, but it's really just a press-fit earplug-like part. However, an O-ring is seated inside it and it's quite deep, so while it might be possible to extract it with a thin-bladed flathead screwdriver—like extracting a snail from its shell—there will definitely be scratches.
I removed the one from my pedal. The method was to insert a long rod through the hole left by the shaft and simply push from the back.
The needle roller bearing inside this pedal body is not replaceable.
I also removed the pedal shaft from the titanium version. The thread length looks different.
But the depth is the same. Looking more closely, I notice that the titanium shaft version has...
...an O-ring at the root—not that the threads aren't cut there, but rather an O-ring is fitted in. This I didn't know before. I've done pedal shaft swaps with this system before, both with chromoly and titanium, but I always thought the titanium had shorter threads. I also wondered if maybe the chromoly had an O-ring that I broke initially, but I didn't remember it being there. I checked every pedal of this type that I have on hand (all chromoly shaft versions), and none of them have O-rings. Combined with my memory that "titanium shafts have shorter threads," I'm now thinking O-rings are only fitted to titanium shaft versions.
↑The bearing seal on the right side of the image is the brown one from my chromoly shaft. The rotation is clearly rough, and since this is likely the main source of the noise, the needle roller bearing itself seems fine. So I'm going to swap the pedal shaft.
I transplanted the O-ring to my former pedal (←the moment I added "former").
Weight difference between the chromoly and titanium shafts.
This generation of Kéo Blade Carbon also has spare rear cleat parts available, and I have inventory of the same strength carbon spring as well.
But I didn't feel the need to replace anything this time, so I didn't.
The rear cleat is held on with a Torx bolt and threaded into the shaft.
With such a small Torx driver/hex key, presumably out of consideration that you wouldn't have two of the same size, the crank side is T8 (T9 will catch but shallowly), while the outer side is T10. I've already loosened it a bit in the photo.
I removed the rear cleat fixing shaft.
This bolt looks like it should be replaced, so I'll swap it out.
The tip of the pedal on the underside—where the leaf spring sits—has a groove, but this groove's vertical width is different between the carbon spring model and the cheaper laminated spring model, which is why they're not compatible.
Earlier I said I wouldn't replace the rear cleat, but...
...the former pedal's looks a bit better, so I've decided to swap it in. The original rear cleat is still usable, so I'll return it to the customer.
When threading the rear cleat shaft, you have to hold down the carbon spring with hand pressure while doing it, otherwise...
...the holes in the pedal body and rear cleat won't line up and the shaft won't pass through. But...
↑there's this kind of weird CO₂ cartridge-like specialized tool,
which has a rounded tip that's slightly smaller in diameter than the shaft, so...
it passes through easily... Though actually, without this tool, even with spring tensions of 16 or 20, it passes through pretty easily anyway.
I've made a matching pair by combining the two pedals. One thing I forgot to mention: if you apply too much grease inside the pedal body, the rotation gets sluggish and the rear cleat won't spin smoothly into the catch position, making it harder to engage. This time I just applied a small amount of fluorine-based oil inside. The pedal shaft rotation is extremely smooth with no roughness. There's no lateral play. It spins into the catch-friendly position with a light flip. I'd say it's sufficient as a makeshift solution.