Quote Originally Posted by TahoeDirtGirl View Post
This is like an engineering question!

I had this happen to me actually because it was the right pedal and you know how confusing that can be putting them on (lefty loosey righty tighty oh wait...not on these pedals!).
I have a personal bike maintenance crusade and it is to get people to stop thinking about "left" and "right" when installing pedals... think "forward" and "back." Of course, with some pedals, you need to make sure you are working with the "correct" pedal (e.g with road pedals, you'd never even try to put the right pedal on the left crankarm because it would be obviously backwards, but with, say, eggbeaters, you have to check the marking on the pedal). But in terms of which way to install them, both pedals go ON by turning the toward the front of the bike, and both pedals come OFF by turning them toward the back of the bike. If you think of it that way you don't have to remember which one is "lefty-tighty."

That said, I've never had a pedal strip out, but I've had lots of cleat screws that don't want to stay in or stay tight, even though they are not stripped. Arrgh. Suddenly noticing your cleat is loose while you're riding is frustrating.. especially if, upon inspection, it turns out that the offending screw is GONE...