Pedals have been a mainstay in our range pretty much since the start and It’s something that we feel is one of the most important parts of the bike.
Our S2 pedal was a very long process to get right and bring you something that we felt would perform to our standards.
As with all of our products we started with some sketches of what we wanted from the pedal, we came to the unanimous decision that we wanted a design with support and decent feel under foot, so we worked around a traditional parallelogram extrusion with a pin in the centre of the pedal body as we didn’t like the feeling of ‘falling through’ pedals with large openings in. This also follows on from our designs with our Nitro and Oxide pedals of old.
Already many revisions into the process and happy with our design we finalised our drawing and made some samples by CNC for proof of concept before opening an expensive extrusion mold. We then got them out to team riders to test. This is one of the most crucial parts of our process and why we have team riders. When out for Joyride in Whistler, Matt Jones was landing so heavy on the bike that we found our design compromise so it was back to the drawing board.
To save a lot of photos in this story, above is about version 9357 of our design. We kept the pin placement exactly the same as we liked the feel, but increased the concavity across the platform – now 2.3mm between the highest and lowest pins, giving that ‘in the pedal’ feeling. We also introduced a full length axle for vastly increased durability.
One thing you’ll notice is the two strengthening braces across the extrusion. These were key to increasing the body strength 5 fold. The new extrusion is stronger in every way.
By going to a full length axle we also adapted the way the central pin was supported to this new asymmetric design. We also think it looks sick whilst keeping all the strength there. Another batch of samples ordered… tested and tooling opened.
Here’s the first pedal out of the extrusion, this was an exciting day in the office and gave us an excuse to go and ride.
After further testing we still felt we could make this pedal even better and so we moved the pin placement with a drill to trial a 3 pin design front and rear on the body. This meant losing the inside rear pin, however on inspection with riding shoes, we weren’t using this pin anyway.
Original pin layout left (top on mobile) – New pin layout and pin loss right (bottom).
Original design left (top on mobile) – New design and pin loss right (bottom).
Now completely happy and stoked with our design we hit the order button and wait for our stock to arrive. It takes a while but we have a good partner in Taiwan for our pedals and working with them is a pleasure.
Here’s the finished thing and we hope you like them too…
Check the pedals out here
