Side Mounted Pedals

[hamsterchick]

While browsing over some roadbike magazines at one hyperbookshop, I came to read about a quite unusual type of roadpedal. 'Side Mounted Pedals" they call it or something to that effect and made somewhere in the USA( Pls correct me).

No spindles with platforms attached to the crankarms but a vertically mounted orb instead. Cleats happen to be the biggest so far designed in the market and engagement is by a half-cup contraption with a vertical arm perpendicular to the cleats and positioned at the inner side of the shoes. When engaging, use it as though hooking-on the half-cup to the orb and spin.

Hype of the contraption is on perfecting rounded pedalling motion instead of thrashing jerky ones. Problem is how gfast can one adopt to such innovation and how they will peform in a crash and disengage.

Seems to be a weenie turn-off though as the total weight are not for anorexic bike part collectors.

Tried finding it in the web but could'nt get a hit, so wonder if anyone here are familiar with this pedal system and where to read more of it out of curiosity and novelty of the item.

Ciao.

[CarbonSports]

Tried finding it in the web but could'nt get a hit, so wonder if anyone here are familiar with this pedal system and where to read more of it out of curiosity and novelty of the item.

Do you mean this?

[nexusheli]

I'm familiar with the man who "invented" this. He's supposedly in talkes with Addidas to makes the shoes and pedals. Something tells me this won't go anywhere.

While in theory it's a great idea, it relies heavily on the interface between the shoe and the cleat as being the weight bearing interface, rather than the pedal platform and the shoe. Chances are when you wear out the cleat, you'll have worn out the shoe as well, and how many of you want to be buying a new $200 pair of shoes every time you need a new cleat?

The man owns a bike shop in california (I think Pasadena) and he's suing the city because he built his bike shop 2 doors down from an In and Out (A regional version of Mcdonalds only 100 times tastier), and the traffic from the In and Out drive-through blocks his shop most hours of the day. I believe he also shares his space with one of the major Downhill and Freeride mountain frame builders.

Of course, most of this info is off the top of my head coming 2nd hand from one of my sales reps in that area. I don't think my sales rep is 'in like' with the man...

[mike]

the smp pedals, with the cleat, weigh about 400 grams....i posted an email i got from the owner of smp a while back....u can do a search...

[tommy]

how do you get out of the pedals? by pulling vertically? That would mean that if you are climbing, that there is a chance you constantly clik out of the pedals....

[willf03]

how do you get out of the pedals? by pulling vertically? That would mean that if you are climbing, that there is a chance you constantly clik out of the pedals....

According to SMP...

Most people pull out of their pedal system in the same position all the time. After a little practice, one can pull out of the SMp in multiple positions.

Yay! now I can pull out of my pedals in more than one position! Sign me up!

In all seriousness, however, these pedals do look super seketchy--I bet they are really flexy, and you would be pulling out of the pedals all the time (unless I'm missing something?).

[burlguy]

Deffinetly promising but they have been reveiwed and proved unsafe for riders. It seems they flex to much and there is fear of breakage? In one of smp reviews on his site . But that is pretty neat that he did leave a bad review up . I am sure that it can be improved upon . The q factor could be narrowed using a stronger platform such as one made out of carbon fiber with teflon wear surface.

[burlguy]

Yesterday while I was huffing against the wind barely able to keep 17mph up I was thinking about these pedals and how much a 3 percent increae in effidiency would be great .

What are the thoughts on this number ? I am biased twords them right now and cant seem to run it through my head.

Does the pedal height make a difference with a strong carbon fiber sole and a stable platform? 3 cm as apposed to 0 cm? I guess the benifit would be more of a circular path rather than a elliptical . But how much of a difference would that make . ..... veiw points please.

[PNuT]

buy some srm's & test them for us

[HXTi]

A long first hand view of this system so far:

The inventor's name is Steve Lubanski and some of you may have seen him on Ripley's Believe it or not. He and his wife really love bunnies and I guess he is always buying her stuffed bunnies of all different materials and their whole house is just filled with them. Infact I think his house is a bunny museum.

Anyways I met the guy at his shop "open road bike shop" several years ago and he showed me his idea. I thought it was interesting and I've watched him go through the whole process to this point. He is a really nice guy though his shop is a bit cluttered with gear all over the place.

If you're really interested he has a spin cycle in his shop with a bunch of shoes with the cleats attached to try out his pedal system. The entire system spindle/cleat is made out of ti and I don't see how you could break them. They're set for 1000lbs of force he says. If you look at the center of the doorknob like pedal it has a small ballbearing sticking out that clicks into a corresponding scooped out spot on the cleat to lock in. There is a spring inside the spindle pushing on the ball bearing and the tension can be adjusted to make release more difficult. The cleat has float but you can turn a screw which digs into the movable plate and fixes the cleat's position. (hard to describe without a pic...you can check out his site)

I like fixed cleats and his system gives you that welded feel unlike the tension fixed feel on looks or my shimano sl's. I tried the float and it was too much for me but speedplay people might like it. The cleat is made to have the ball of your foot actually at the level of the center of the spindle. I could instantly feel a nice smoothness to my pedal stroke. It just felt completely connected with no rocking over or around the spindle due to stack height. (if you use shims for LL discrepancy you know what this rocking torque feels like) I could tell I was more efficient making nice round circles. It just felt nice to me. The disengagement process is push in and up. It take getting used to and I would be nervous at first on the open road. The nice thing about this is that if you do scrape a pedal in a corner (this system does dec. corner clearance) you're less likely to pivot on that pedal and raise the rear tire and crash because the cleat would most likely unclip.

The pedal also lowers your position by at least 2.5cm for me coming off shimano's and more for looks. This would have a huge effect on the fit of one's current bike or could help depending on bar drop and number of spacers present. You would really have to think pedal first and fit bike second in this case because you could technically go one size smaller.

Well after all that why don't I have a pair? Well I think they'll be available in a couple weeks time....the first batch. Also I don't like the design of the simple screw that digs into the movable plate to fix the cleat. (oh the cleats will not wear and they're very easy to walk in..flat with grip tape on the bottom) He has mentioned the idea of a pure fixed cleat that will actually be simpler and lighter. Also people have mentioned flex.....well I too have felt some flex under high resistance (on the spin cycle)....lateral portion of cleat flexing down a bit pulling on the pedal wall. I don't know if it is flexing at the lip of the cleat that attaches to the pedal or that the ti spindle is flexing or a combination of both. The cleat is actually at 88 degrees instead of a pure 90 angle which Steve feels is better for some reason. I asked him about the flex issue and he says the test ones were prototypes without tight tolerances and that the real batch would be better. However I must say this is flex for a 220lbs sprinter. I personally want rock solid stiff......maybe they need to make a steel version which his original prototypes were made of.

Anyways I kept reading some misinformation out there and thought I'd send out my two cents. I think this system shows great promise and especially for me because I want a welded on fixed feeling in a pedal system and that hard to explain efficient feeling of zero stack height. Now whether this will make me faster.....who knows. The flex issue does compel me to wait a bit and when his real batch comes out soon I'll go and try it out. I for one will be keeping an eye on its development. I want it to work but I'll have to wait and see.

Well this got too long...... kudos if you read through it all. By the way I think he's a nice guy but I do not work for him in any way shape or form. I just wanted to put out some real info about this system because I think it shows promise. ((I realized first post said no spindles.......by spindle I mean the part that screws into the crank....very short...really only long enough to screw in and then the round doorknob part starts))

[fdegrove]

Hi,

The pedal also lowers your position by at least 2.5cm for me coming off shimano's and more for looks.

I always wonder how many users of those pedals are actually aware of the effect that dreaded stack height has on their performance...

Except for the Look Keos, all Look pedals I know shorten the effective crank length by at least 1 cm depending on the shoes you're putting on.

Funnily the new Time pedals compromise in this area as well even though it was Time that actually applied the theory of stackless (well, more or less that is) correctly in their time (sic) proven Equipe range of pedals, in order the adopt the popular Look 3-point cleat fixing system they lost that edge.
The old TBT system with the split cleat was IMHO at least far superior in that it did present the sole of the shoe nearly straight to the pedal's axle over a comfortably wide area avoiding hot spots in the process.
But that's another issue....

Conversely, the Look Keo range manages roughly the same result as Time by redesigning the cleat and pedal, lowering the clip system so that it engages closer to the center of the axle unlike the classic Look 206 pedals and derivatives.

Those two companies have been looking at each other's work and not just pedals either....

I have no idea whatsoever how many pros actually prefer using clipless pedals without lateral float but I'm most certainly not one of them.
Then again I'm no pro either but I do value my knee joints.

So far the Speedplay and perhaps the new ORB come closest to the theoretical ideal to my mind. I've never used either so I'm just judging from a mere engineering POV.

Enter the new pedal from Mr. Lubanski but without lateral float I know it will never be my cupper, no matter how well designed elsewhere...

Ciao,

[Superlite]

Except for the Look Keos, all Look pedals I know shorten the effective crank length by at least 1 cm depending on the shoes you're putting on.

No pedal systems can change effective crank length as they all attatch to the sam point on the crank. Only thing it can change is seat height needed due to stack height.

[uphillisgood]

Interesting!

Like others here; one concern of mine would be how easily it disengages by pulling on the back foot.

I'm anxious to hear the first user's report here!

[jersievers]

Except for the Look Keos, all Look pedals I know shorten the effective crank length by at least 1 cm depending on the shoes you're putting on.

No pedal systems can change effective crank length as they all attatch to the sam point on the crank. Only thing it can change is seat height needed due to stack height.

Exactly, pointless to change stack height. May be a lower center of gravity would give a edge in cornering, but improved power...bull. You are still spining the same circle.

[fdegrove]

Hi,

May be a lower center of gravity would give a edge in cornering, but improved power...bull. You are still spining the same circle.

Sorry folks but you're dead wrong.
I didn't say the cranklength changed, I said that the "effective" cranklength changed. Not quite the same thing.

Think it through, I'm off to bed...

Ciao,