Weight Weenies

A pedal appeared on kickstarter yesterday. The pedal provides in feet movement in 3 axis. I think the idea is quite interesting. There is no information on the stack-height yet. The weight has to come down a bit, but it seems promising.

Information
3ax is the worlds first clipless pedal that gives your feet the freedom to sway sideways. It enables your legs to follow a more natural, fluent flow with every stroke, at every point. It's a small change that makes a huge difference:

- Better leg alignment: on average, knees move 17% less sideways
- Less strain, because of a better fit between your bike and your body
- Efficiency improvements of up to 5.47%

The current prototypes weigh 188 grams each (366 gr per set), the goal is to reduce it in coming months. The main focus is on durability since the sway mechanism uses four ball bearings, they make sure they don't wear out after a while.
Here are some tech specs:
- CNC finished extra high tensile aluminum
- Hardened spines (42CrMo4)
- Sway mechanism with ball bearings
- Powder coated for extra durability

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/91 ... s/comments

Didn't Time do sideways movement 20 years ago with their bio position stuff?

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I'm not convinced at all. Nobody likes walking on an unstable platform. It certainly isn't the same as walking on firm sand.

Time had lateral movement, the platform was huge and stable.

How is this any different from using badly worn Speedplays?

I used Speedplay for many years, but when I got a Garmin Vector with Exustar Look-alikes I barely noticed the lack of float except for when out of the saddle, where I can't say which I prefer. I now use a mix of Speedplay, Exustar/Garmin, Bebop, and Speedplay Frog. What I absolutely miss, though, is double-sided entry, and since this doesn't have it I'd give it a pass. Of the 3 I prefer Bebop the most, Frog probably the least (since clip-in isn't secure), then the Speedplay over Exustar only for the double-sided entry and not because of the float.

Lateral float is nice only because you don't need to be as fussy setting up your cleats.

This isn't lateral float. This is rocking (I think that's called yaw?)

Roll and that develops within a few weeks. With badly worn Speedplays you get movement in just about every direction.

All I'm going to say is that the weight is too heavy for what it is and asking price is just too high in my opinion.

Meh... No interest. Seems like a design trying to address and issue that I have no issue with. Plenty of great pedals out there already. Will probably be a one and done type part (don't see this having great long term success).

Thanks for sharing, Jipperd!

Franklin wrote:This isn't lateral float. This is rocking (I think that's called yaw?)

That's right, it is a rocking motion. 3ax pedals are not about side-to-side movement, but about the angle the platform will make to adapt to your anatomy. We could write a long story about this and why the "rocking" degree of freedom does feel stable, but the best explanation is actually our video on kickstarters website.

And no, these are not yet the lightest pedals or the ones with the lowest stack height, but the smoothness of the ride will more than compensate!

Hope this is helpful, otherwise please ask!

The pedals seem hanging on spindles like swing.
Could they withstand lifting if installed at Powercranks

Regards,

SimonCHAN

The pedals were designed for and tested on normal cranksets (according to ISO standards and on the road), but they should be fine if installed on powercranks too. Overall there may be more lifting force with powercranks, but peak lifting force won't differ from sprinting with a regular crankset, or pulling your bike up when jumping, both of which we tested thoroughly and still do in our endurance tests.

Interesting idea and great to see some innovation in an area which for me is one of the most important ones when it comes to both comfort and performance.
You have your work cut out for marketing these successfully though. While the performance gains of up to 5.47% sounds great, people generally can not translate that into specific palpable advantage over other existing pedal solutions.
Nowadays price is king, followed by the lower weights, and this is where you will have to improve your product, which has lots of weight reduction potential from the little info that I could find.
The 199$ early bird price is acceptable if the weight would be between 200-250 grams (you can get sub 200 grams pedals for about 150 USD nowadays)
For the 299$ projected price you will have to work harder and bring in the bling factors, carbon fiber and Ti will have to be part of your marketing there.
At least this is the way I see it.

Thank you Jano. I agree with the points you make and the strategy you lay out is probably the one we will follow. Believe it or not, I am not interested in making the pedals more expensive than they need to be. I'd rather make them obtainable for as many as possible. At this point however, Kickstarter (offering direct sales to buyers) is the only place where we can actually offer a price of 199! In normal retail chains we would lose money on every set sold for that price, considering our high production price that results from extra custom parts. Of course, we expect this to be temporarily because if numbers go up, production prices go down. And we will keep on developing and lower weight, stack height and price are all on our list, some of these easier to realize than others. However, for the time being, we think that our significantly adventageous feature makes up for more than the weight and price, especially if there is pain or discomfort involved!

It's great to see enthusiasts giving it a try, a good one by the looks of it. Personally I think that innovation and especially innovation done by entrepreneurs like you is the way forward in today's world. Thus I wish you good luck with your project.

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