The alloy bolts were "usually" strong enough to hold the crank in place, but not to tighten the crank - as the instructions said. Obviously some of us back then saw it as a sideline hobby/sport to see how many grams we could shave off our bikes. Drillium!
I had a set of those gold alloy bolts on my Masi in the 70's. I used them per the instructions and they never broke. In fact I still have them in a drawer. I don't bother using them anymore because those few grams won't make much difference to my performance now 30+ years older. Maybe it didn't back then either - but it looked cool when I was 16.
Hey, how about ultra light Hi-E skewers??? I still have one of those minimalist of skewers on the front wheel of that same Masi.
Mark Winkelman
Dallas, Texas USA
> The instructions themsleves are stupid. If you're going to have to use
> steel bolts every time you tighten the cranks, then the alloy bolts serve
> no purpose. May as well just remove the bolts altogether after you've
> tightened the cranks and save yet another few grams. Of course, maybe you
> need to carry the steel bolts with you in case you have to retighten the
> cranks, but then you haven't reduced the total weight of bike and rider
> and gear. Like I said, alloy crank bolts were a really stupid idea.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jerry Moos
> Big Spring, Texas, USA
>
>
> --- On Wed, 1/7/09, Nor Meyer <norbikes@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Nor Meyer <norbikes@gmail.com>
>> Subject: [CR]Re: "Arnold-like" Alloy Crankarm bolts
>> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>> Date: Wednesday, January 7, 2009, 10:23 AM
>> A really stupid idea, IMHO. I mean one of the principal
>> functions of a
>> crank bolt is to tighten the cranks, and alloy bolts could
>> not do so without
>> a high risk of failure.
>>
>> Uh, if you'd bothered to read the instructions prior to
>> installing, you'd
>> have discovered that you first install the crank arms with
>> *steel* bolts,
>> then remove them and replace w the nifty aluminum ones...
>> It's that "bling
>> factor" ya kno, sorta like "Built for Speed"
>> decals on some bikes. Very
>> stylin'
>>
>> Nor Meyer, holed up in icey Mt. Vernon, IA
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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