SUMMARY: Great looking pedals, with superb performance but not for big miles.
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The philosophy behind these pedals from Straitline is simple; build them simple and tough. The pedals can be stripped down and rebuilt in literally minutes, meaning there is no excuse for not keeping them running smoothly. In addition, because they use bushings instead of traditional bearings, with a little servicing, the pedals should last for years.
I have been using a set of these pedals on my cross country and downhill bike for a year and have slightly mixed feelings about them. Out of the box the pedals look stunning, the machining is fantastic and look tough despite their relatively light weight of a shade over 500g a pair. When they arrived I needed to fit all the pins which was a little fiddly. Under foot the pedals are great; they are very grippy and have a good sized platform. In addition they are still in pretty good shape despite some pretty hard pedal strikes. They turn freely and still look cool, which is obviously important. However the down side is the bushings; they don’t work for an XC pedal in my opinion. They have some teflon washers that stop the outside of the pedals wearing away but in my pedals these washers wore away very quickly, meaning that the actual body of the pedal wore which results in a lot of lateral movement in the pedal. This causes a lot of noise when you’re not standing on the pedals and a distracting vagueness when you are. As mentioned above, the pedals are very easy to service and I did this at least once a week but this hasn’t helped their longevity.
It wouldn’t be fair to write this review and not mention the customer service from Straitline. When I started getting problems I spoke to them and they were extremely helpful and sent me some washers in the post. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy their products in the future and it has to be said I think that I am just using the pedal in a manner it wasn’t designed for i.e. big pedalling miles. For a DH use I think that this could be just about the ideal pedal, however for people who do a lot of pedaling I would look elsewhere.
+ Great grip and performance.
+ Look fantastic.
+ Great company to deal with.
– I don’t think it performs well as an XC pedal, best to keep for the DH bike.
