Wanting some flat pedals for my g.1 explorer but preferably some that are soft tissue friendly, I plan to use this bike as an adventure bike. Riding around town, gravel roads, fishing, and so on. Stock pedals work but suck and mtb flat pedals work great shredding trails but suck on more calm riding, and I'm not personally a fan of clipless.
by Hairy_Ferret9324
12 Comments
The pins on most MTB pedals are removable and usually come with the tool to do so. You could take all of the pins out, or just one side so you can flip for city/trail.
there’s an inverse relationship between how much confidence you will feel that your feet will stick to pedals and their flesh-unfriendliness. look for some large, thin plastic pedals with molded pins that are made for bmx riding. a retailer like Empire BMX will have the largest selection of those.
Perhaps it’s the shoes you wear while riding.
Race Face Chesters have pins but you can adjust the height on them so that they don’t stick out so much. I don’t know if you’re supposed to do this, I tried it on some Deity Deftrap pedals and the pins ended up falling off, but never had a problem with it on my Chesters.
I think these bikes are really neat.
OneUp Composite are by favorite flats.
I’d remove the kick stand if you’re riding on gravel.
Honest question: is OP riding barefoot? or are their shoes very thin soled?
For Flat:
* LOOK Geo Trail Pedals – These can occasionally be found at clearance pricing. These are great if you occasionally ride with softer sole shoes.
* RaceFace Ride (Plastic instead of metal like on the popular and effective RaceFace “Chesters”) – These are the goto pedals I suggest for eBikes and commuters. They have decent grip for just plastic.
That said I highly prefer the confidence from running pinned pedals. The added grip really helps keep my foot on the pedals and improves confidence. My favorites at the moment are a little pricey to toss on the G.1 PNW Loams and the Spank Reboots. The pins don’t have threading at the ends, and are less likely to both scrape you up and snag clothing. But quality budget pedals work great… like the PNW Range, RaceFace Chesters, OneUp Composites and Crank Bro’s Stomp 1.
If you grab a name brand pedal, jut about anything will be better than the stock set that’s only included to mean the legal pedal reflector requirement in some regions.
Go to the hardware store and get a file. Way cheaper than new pedals and you can desharpen the pin edges to your taste.
I did this on my commuter. If you remove some pins and take the razor sharp edges off the remaining ones you can get a really nice mix of grip and less dangerous.
Of course the old school 80s BMX pedal style never slipped and yet didn’t shred all flesh instantly too.
If you’re really banging stuff into your shins even clipless pedals with their rounded edges can still cut you.
Race Face makes a pedal called Ride, which is about equivalent to the Chester pedal, with plastic nubs as opposed to the metal pins of the Chester.
In terms of sports, flat pedals are nonsense. At least in my view. Gravel bikes are meant for speed. If you enter gravel roads cleat pedals are also better, to stay steady.
You can get shorter pins, they’re usually just metric Allen bolts. Other than that I really like the nylon pedals from Fyxation.
I’ve got QDP alloy pedals on my gravel/tourer as I use it for commuting too.
Works fine due to the rubber on the pedals.
If I was planning a multi day trip in wet weather I may swap the pedals out for the weekend.