People keep greasing the wrong part of pedal threads

Was helping a buddy swap pedals on his mountain bike last weekend and he had a whole tube of grease out, ready to slather the threads all the way up to the crank arm. Told him to stop, that you only need grease on the first few threads that actually contact the crank. He didn't believe me so I showed him a pedal I installed wrong a while back where the grease pushed out and mixed with dirt, basically turned into grinding paste. Now his old pedals spin smooth but creak under load. Why do so many videos online show people coating the whole threaded shaft like it's a thanksgiving turkey?

2 comments

2 Comments

ruby_grant8d ago

Oh come on, you're overthinking this. A little extra grease on the full shaft never hurt anyone and it keeps the threads from seizing up if you ever need to swap pedals in the rain, lol.

sage_perry8d ago

Wait, is it really that big of a deal though? I mean, I get that having the full shaft covered in grease is gonna make a mess and pick up every speck of dirt on the trail. But if someone's pedal is already creaking, maybe it's more of a torque issue or a worn out bearing than a grease problem. Idk, I've definitely gone heavy on the grease before and just wiped the excess off before it got too crusty. It's not like you're gonna strip the threads by accident unless you really crank it down with a breaker bar. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like people get way too serious about this stuff when a little common sense fixes most of the issues.