Interesting pin design on these pedals.
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I feel like this could be a direct quote from early 29er reviews in the 2000s.
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one day some bike designer’s going to have an epiphany that maybe small bikes should have small wheels, medium bikes medium wheels, and large bikes large wheels.
maybe.
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I’ve experienced this with my low-trail bikes so I’ll answer as well.
Weak self-centering cannot overcome a loose surface with high or spiking resistance and the front tire understeers and plows into that surface. If it was a hard surface you’d see a regular front end washout but since it’s soft you get what feels like and can exhibit a plowing effect.
With higher trail the self-centering is strong and resistance to leaning is higher so the bike will be more likely to upright from the interplay between the front wheel encountering resistance and the wheel flop activating to overcome the resistance.
I feel this more often with my 700cx38-45 low-trail bike with 8+lbs in the front handlebar bag compared to the same bike with 650bx42-50+. The weight reduces the snappiness and on dynamic unpaved surfaces it’s easy to get into understeer condition with what feels like plowing to follow.
Jan wrote about this a long time ago and IIRC he conceptualized it as “trail goes to 0/∞” and found it primarily in steep short and loose descents where the actual HTA approaches 90° (or 0°).
Sometimes plowing can be captured after the fact. This is sand with what was undisturbed top crust from light rain. The plowing effect was primarily from the front tire with the rear following. Rode through here at a moderate speed and had the ride of my life for 1/4 second as the front sunk and then plowed through and the rear displaced itself immediately to follow. That’s a 38mm tire so the actual lateral displacement or slip was relatively little but it felt incredibly powerful.
You can see the understeer too, with my higher trail bikes I can follow the center arc through the sand perfectly at higher speeds.
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Yeah but we all know that as soon as you put medium wheels on a medium bike, the medium guys will want the large wheels
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that’s how you sell them two bikes!
I should start a brand
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pricing is a bit tough on composite pedals, but definitely looks interesting, might have to try these out
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They supposedly have a high/er recycled carbon content, which may contribute to the price.
Yeah, horses for courses. Plus tires are really great here in the upper Midwest with all the sandy loam trails on glacial kames. But of course it’s not for everyone everywhere all the time.
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dont insult my recently-adopted lifestyle. its who i am.
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proportional wheel sizes would be nice, but surface dynamics and obstacles don’t scale with the rider and frame unfortunately
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If the bike doesn’t fit and isn’t fun to ride it doesn’t matter. You find another hobby.
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I agree, I’m saying that small riders can’t take advantage of larger wheel diameters without compromise to riding dynamics. you can build an XL frame on 20" wheels but not an XS 36er
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tell that to PK ripper
So when you’re talking about understeer what you mean is not in the car sense of losing front wheel traction, but rather that on soft surfaces you lose the normal steering effect that you get from leaning the bike, presumably from the larger contact patch? This reminds me of discussions about running low pressures on cross bikes from like 15 years ago.
“This bike doesn’t lean when I strap a bunch of weight to it” is great until you need it to
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I mean the bike doesn’t lean. You lean the bike. It does feel different on low trail bikes. Like you’re deciding what’s going on rather than vibing with the surface, so to speak? I think that’s what we’re talking about here?
Tbh these days, between mountain bikes and my 650b bike, getting on a bike with trad road geo feels weird to me lol.
on the plowing: I assume this is what happens when I ride my bike in the snow and try to turn too fast? the front wheel goes mostly in the direction I WAS going regardless of how I’ve turned it?
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That sounds like regular loss of traction understeer which I imagine would not really be affected too much by trail