Riders left angry and confused by Shimano crank issues

Japanese brand institutes inspection regime after Ultegra and Dura-Ace failures

- Joe Baker

Cyclists have reacted with anger over Shimano’s handling of a inspection programme of suspected faulty Ultegra and Dura-Ace cranksets that affects hundreds of thousands of riders.

Last month, the Japanese giant issued a recall notice in North America for 760,000 cranks after over 4,000 reported incidents, including six injuries. But due to different regulations in the UK, Shimano is only inspecting the UK and European portion of the 2.8 million cranks affected globally (see box).

Riders in the UK were left aggrieved. CW reader David Morgan said he paid £260 to replace a broken Ultegra chainset in 2021. “If this happened today, the replacement would be free under the product recall process. This is completely unacceptable,” he said.