Aluminium bolts...

General Help
1

I changed my chainring on my street fixie the other day, and as I was tightening the chainring bolts up, I split a couple of the female binder thingos at the back of the chainring. I closely inspected the bolts and binders only to find them made of shoddy aluminium. :expressionless:
Admittedly, the cranks themselves aren’t of the highest quality (Sunny Krown, CKT), but I expected better. After riding my damaged bike over to Abbotsford, they were able to help me out with 5 steel male and female bolts for $8.00. That’s good pricing.
I bet if I went to BSC they’d be like “er, that’s a special order item, $30.00” :wink:

It brought back painful memories of the alloy crank bolt that split on my Truvativ cranks.

My question is why do manufacturers keep using Aluminium bolts- they’re shit!
Steel is so much better, even if it does weigh a bit more.

2

Because most bike geeks are weight-weenies who don’t actually ride their bikes enough to break or wear out parts. They get off on taking 7.5 grams off their equipment instead of taking 7.5 kilograms off their gut.

3

Agreed, chainring bolts and spoke nipples should never be aluminium.

4

Alloy chainring bolts are terrible.
They creak like a bitch on XT cranks and just plain snap on FSA.
Ditch 'em.
E

5

Yeah thanks for the advice I’ll change them over to steel.

BAD IDEAS IN BICYCLE COMPONENTS:

-Aluminium bolts
-Carbon fibre seatposts

6

alloy nips are fine as long as the build is good