Wintersun wrote:
Bottom line, if Hobie cared about the problem with the cranks breaking they would change the design or the materials used.
There is a misunderstanding of the problem and Hobie's solutions.
We believe that
pedal cranks are no longer an issue. We addressed the problem aggressively last spring.
We had few issues with cranks failing until 2013 when there was a spike in claims. The largest number of failures is from aggressive pedaling. Add inconsistencies in production = more failures. This identified a supplier issue... not a design defect. Of course, some would say design, because we could have a 100% unbreakable crank by over building them. That would add weight and cost, so not the solution we feel is the right one.
Primarily the material and hardness process were in question. There were inconsistencies in the hardness. We started 100% hardness testing on received product and then, analysis of materials and hardness issues from the supplier. In addition, we made some other changes to increase the strength factor.
Understand that there will continue to be some failure of older product. There are a lot of MirageDrives in use.