Photo by forkgirl
Here’s the situation, You have a road bike and a mountain bike and you want to use one of them for your commute to work, daily coffee shop run or to do a drunken pub ride.
Problem is, those bikes have fancy clipless pedals that make it tricky and dangerous to ride with sneakers (which are great for strolling), and your clipless shoes are hard and tight and uncomfortable and crappy for walking. So what do you do? Take a pair of shoes? Deal with the clips? ride carefully with your sneakers on those tine little pedals?
What if there was a sturdy, safe, and robust product that could convert any clipless pedal to platform and solve this problem for less cost than a new set of pedals that won’t send you running for a pedal wrench and trying to remember which one is back threaded…
We may soon find out. My sister is designing just such a pedal for an engineering class @ UNR. Please help her out by taking this survey she and her team needs to gauge the marketability of the product. With our help she’ll be the first bike product development engineer on the team!!
-M
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i have and use the plastic ones that Shimano provides (for test rides at bike shops) but agree that counter weight would be handy. perhaps just as handy would be to the cage of the pedal deep enough that it is useable from either side. absolutely critical is the need for an easy way to remove the cage from the pedal. a flat blade screwdriver to pry the cleat from the pedal is not very convenient. perhaps a built in lever that opens the jaw of the pedal then lifts the cleat?
if you really want to get your geek on, design a pedal whose spindle contains a micro generator that provides power to the LEDs in the pedal cage. you’d probably want to have some kind of capacitor to keep it flashing when your not moving your pedals (stopped or coasting). that might be too good of an idea to give away… anyone out there a patent attorney?
That IS already patented : )
I have an idea: how about using a trout to adapt your sneaker to the clipless pedal?
Crank Bros sells a cool platform pedal I use on my commute bike that is designed to be used with regular shoes but also has the eggbeater clip built into the middle. http://www.crankbrothers.com/mallet.php
I agree with JR that the existing ones are almost impossible to take off and typically only work with one brand (eg shimano). Maybe a universal one?
–J
I use the Mallet, too. I think they are pretty comfortable as the egg beater doesn’t create too much discomfort in flip flops/running shoes/whatever. REI-Outlet.com has them on a closeout sale for 39 bucks, down from full retail at $100. Good deal.
Hard to believe nobody has ever invented something like that…would be a very useful item. I’d buy a set.
As a matter of fact, one of my climbing buddies is a patent attorney. I give him shit all the time about being a rich yuppie climber, to which he replies “You’d be surprised how little money I make.” I can’t really give him much shit though, he’s a considerably better climber than me.
If this gets to the point where a patent looks likely, I’ll be glad to put you in touch.
Taldor,
i’ve been meditating over your suggestion, and i must type, there is merit to it! who the fck would steal a bike with rotting fish glommed to the pedals? it may be the perfect lo-low budget urban bike riding brain storm! well, next to finding a dead trout at the ka-YAK! park in downtown, just pick up a can of kipper snacks from the no-frills grocery store, pop a can opener a few times across the can, clip it in, and stand on the thing to provide locomotion. umm, don’t wear high heels (sorry Copenhagen Cycle Chics) or catch the pedal upside down (counter weight?). bring a bat too. you never know who’ll be hittin’ on you at those chi-chi bars down town all sniffin’ of tuna.
i suppose i can always keep my riding pedals on 24-7-365 and cope with flip flops between the bars at happy hour and the cars for shuttle runs while tubin on hot days. but… if there was an uber convenient way to adapt and an icky to the pedals, what enthusiast could resist?!