I've seen lots of completely broken crank arms of many brands. What I haven't seen (or been told first-hand about) is a vintage R/SR one that broke at the infamous spider crack. I can only go by data in hand - not stories.
Scroll down what page?
Greg Parker
Ann Arbor, Michigan
> On Thursday, Mar 17, 2005, at 13:46 US/Pacific, gpvb1@comcast.net wrote:
\r?\n> > My informal CR survey last year turned up precisely zero vintage
\r?\n> > aluminum cranks (of any brand) that broke at the arm-to-spider
\r?\n> > junction. It actually surprised me a bit - I thought there would at
\r?\n> > least be *some* that broke there. Lots of cracks there, but no
\r?\n> > failures....
\r?\n>
\r?\n> That must have been really informal because I've seen at least a dozen
\r?\n> completely broken. I had a completely broken crank and two right arms
\r?\n> with really long cracks that I drug around for years, but I recycled
\r?\n> them when I was getting ready to move to Belgium. None of these I
\r?\n> actually broke but were given to me as mementos. I also had a good
\r?\n> buddy of mine who knew I was a Mavic geek and passed me on a set of his
\r?\n> old cranks, upon installation prep I found both arms cracked and the
\r?\n> right one in two places. If you want to see a broken Campy crank at
\r?\n> the spider with your own eyes scroll down this page a bit.
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> I think one of the reasons that you've never seen a completely broken
\r?\n> crank could be that the Campy flaw has been long known. I remember
\r?\n> hearing reports of cracking Campagnolo cranks 20+ years ago. I think
\r?\n> riders knew to inspect their cranks and pulled the cranks before actual
\r?\n> failure. Most of the actual failures I've seen were from folks who
\r?\n> bought used bikes and didn't know about the history of the crank.
\r?\n> best,
\r?\n> Brandon"monkeyman"ives
\r?\n> Cd'A, ID.