We’ve hit pay dirt here at Flying Pigeon LA – a source of high quality, machined 9.5mm cotters. I just added them to our online shop:
Flying Pigeon 9.5mm, Machined Bicycle Crank Cotter
These steel slugs fix a bicycle’s crank arms to it’s bottom bracket, and they are hard to come by here in the U.S.
The cotters that do make it here to the U.S. are generally very cheaply produced – they are snipped off the end of a pole of steel, and they carry deformities which makes using them a pain.
The new cotters we picked up are nicely machined (nice an uniform in their manufacture), made out of quality steel, and are offered to you at the same low, low, price of $1.50 ea. We’ve got a couple hundred in stock, but the last batch (of lower grade cotters) went pretty quickly.
You pick yourself up a few by visiting our shop!
On a side note: I’ve tried these on an old Raleigh (which took 3/8″ cotters) and they worked (so far). For reference: 3/8″ = 9.52mm.
4 Comments
How about the 9.0 mm cotters? These are original equipment on the early French bikes – Peugeot, Gitane, etc. For some reason these early French bicycles have survived the decades better than many other UBBTS (Universal Bike Boom Ten Speeds). They are coming out of the woodwork now with seized cotters and disintegrated Simplex derailleurs, but otherwise intact and ready to be restored.
Good question Harv.
I asked the distributor I got the cotters off of the same question. His reply?
He said that you can just file down 9.5mm to fit 9.0, or hammer ’em a little harder! I didn’t say anything after that.
I bought every cotter this fellow had in stock – all 9.5mm size. I’m working to purchase alloy 28″ rims from China at the moment, and if I got enough interest perhaps I could chase down a big crate full of the various cotters and their sizes. I’d want to see some samples before buying (now that I’ve seen the difference)!
How many can I put you down for! 😉
I am really new to cotters.Can you post more detailed information on this ?
Jenni,
I’m not sure what you’re interested in finding out!
How about this: cotters are metal pins that get hammered or pressed into place to attach a bicycle crank arm to a bicycle bottom bracket.
Here is a classic article on cottered cranks by Sheldon Brown:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/cotters.html