Shimano global crankset recall: Everything we know

(Image credit: Will Jones)

Here at Cyclingnews we publish a good number of recall notices. For the most part they usually cover a small number of products, and usually in a specific market. The Shimano crank recall though is substantially bigger than the norm, both in terms of the number of affected products (2.8 million) and the geographic spread: although the recall was initially a North American issue, it’s now a global one.

Given the scope we thought it prudent to create a hub page detailing the affected products, what to do, how to check, any guidance from Shimano and local consumer safety bodies (in case this changes with time) and some more wide ranging insights into how this affects the industry as a whole.

On the inside of each crank arm, at the end near the pedal axle there is printed a product code. You want to look first for the crank series number, which sits below the Shimano logo. If it matches any of the product codes (eg “FC-6800”) then you need to check the two letter code at the bottom right, after the crank length notation. If it’s any of the two letter options shown above then your cranks are affected.

Your cranks will then be inspected for any possible signs of delamination at the bond and if they are deemed unsafe or at risk then they will be replaced. Not every affected crankset will need to be replaced, but if yours is deemed necessary to replace, the immediacy of the replacement however is unknown, as this may well be stock dependant, and given the scale of the number of affected cranks there’s every chance there may be a wait.

From what Cyclingnews understands, any cranks deemed in need of replacing will be swapped out for a more up to date crank arm. In essence this means your faulty 11-speed crank arms will be swapped for a 12-speed arm (made with newer techniques), onto which 11-speed chainrings will be fitted. This may result in some cosmetic mismatching, but it’s worth noting that we have seen WorldTour pros using 12-speed crank arms with 11-speed chainrings and vice versa.

"4iiii is aware of the recall and is working closely with Shimano to keep their riders safe and their cycling uninterrupted. If any 4iiii users are impacted by this recall, 4iiii is ready to replace their current crank-based power meters by either performing a factory install on their replacement cranks shipped from Shimano or, if a quicker solution is needed, directly sending a comparable factory second power meter from 4iiii's PRECISION 3+ NDS or PRECISION PRO Dual models.

Unlike other manufacturers (SRAM and Campagnolo, plus some others) that swapped to carbon fibre for their high end cranksets, Shimano continued to use alloy. The affected cranksets, as well as others in the Shimano catalogue, are made of two separate parts which are then bonded together. If you look at the rear side of a set of Ultegra cranks for example you’ll see a thin line along the edge; this is the bond line.

Surprisingly, (though it must be made clear this isn’t the Financial Times - we are bicycle analysts, not financial ones) Shimano’s share price doesn’t seem to have taken as much of a hit as we’d have expected, especially when viewed in the context of industry trends as a whole. In fact, at the time of writing its share price has rebounded by 1.4%, after taking a hit of around 4% when the news broke on Thursday.

At the start of the year it seemed like Shimano had more or less a stranglehold on the upper echelons of road cycling, if you take the WorldTour teams - and success - as anything to go by. Now though, with this news and a year in which Jumbo-Visma won all three Grand Tours on SRAM groupsets, alongside Demi Vollering winning the Tour de France Femmes and Annemiek van Vleuten winning the Giro d'Italia Donne and La Vuelta Femenina, again using SRAM, is this a turning of the tide?

It does seem that SRAM had more or less given up euro-centric team sponsorship, focussing instead on North America, and particularly gravel and MTB where it has a much more dominant position. Will we see this shift in the coming year? It’s hard to say, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the American firm will try to capitalise. The timing of SRAM's latest Instagram campaign was also notable, even if coincidental.

Officially it was a recall in partnership with the CPSC, North American recalls often are, as brands work together with the Commission to formulate a plan that helps ensure consumer safety. Whether the decision to recall the products was led by Shimano or the CPSC itself is yet to be confirmed. Regardless, given the products affected are globally distributed, it is possible that once the CPSC recall was in progress, Shimano felt that not going global was impossible.

Will joined the Cyclingnews team as a reviews writer in 2022, having previously written for Cyclist, BikeRadar and Advntr. He’s tried his hand at most cycling disciplines, from the standard mix of road, gravel, and mountain bike, to the more unusual like bike polo and tracklocross. He’s made his own bike frames, covered tech news from the biggest races on the planet, and published countless premium galleries thanks to his excellent photographic eye. Also, given he doesn’t ever ride indoors he’s become a real expert on foul-weather riding gear. His collection of bikes is a real smorgasbord, with everything from vintage-style steel tourers through to superlight flat bar hill climb machines.