Words and Pics By - Ty Fitzgerald

Truvativ’s Hussefelt crankset has become a common feature on many bikes over the years on everything from burly hardtails to full on downhill rigs. Earlier in the year I had my first experience with this crankset when building up my urban hardtail. Initially I was very impressed with their stiffness and general burly looks, I also like the fact that the crank arms weren’t overly wide, which meant my ankles didn’t rub up on the side of them, a problem I’ve had with other cranks.

For the first few weeks I had these cranks I trashed them pretty hard and soon noticed a small amount of play starting to develop between the non-drive side crank and the bottom bracket even though I had always kept them well tightened.

Upon closer inspection I discovered the crank / bottom bracket interface was slightly flogged out and thinking I might have just been unlucky, I tracked down a new left side crank and BB (just to be safe). I installed the replacement crank and bottom bracket and proceeded to check the tightness of the bolts after every ride.

Within another month I had managed to bend the drive side crank and flog out the left hand cranks’ bottom bracket interface again, needless to say I was not impressed.

Around the same time Dom, a fellow Farkin crewmember, had similar issues with a set of Hussefelts on his bike, namely stripped pedal threads (yes he was using a pedal washer). Dom’s pedal had somehow managed to bite into the crank arm and burrow its way in, destroying the pedal thread and leaving the crank ruined.

The reason for our woes was discovered when I had to cut the granny ring tabs off a set of Hussefelts with a hacksaw, in order to fit a chain device. Hot knives wish they went through butter this easily; the alloy was just that soft and was obiously a poor medium for a thread. This answered a lot of my questions about why the cranks were so easy to flog out but still felt stiff and strong on the bike.

I believe that Truvativ have addressed this problem somewhat on the 2003 models by adding a cromoly pedal thread insert, which should cure the pedal strip problem, however I don’t believe anything has been done to prevent the interface between the cranks and bottom bracket becoming worn.

If you currently own a set of Hussefelts my advice is to make sure you keep them done up tight and to be extra careful when installing pedals. My current set has held up for about 2 months now but I’m still very wary of them and check them religiously after every ride.