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TPE16: Chien King Industrial wins award for making pedals out of rice hulls

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chien king industrial extruded rice hull pedals grips packaging-2

Chien King Industrial’s pedal display was one of the few booths at the show that you could smell before you could see it – in a good way. One of the more intriguing winners of the D&I awards, Chien King’s new production method is a win-win in almost every angle. Looking at the discarded rice hulls strewn about their booth, it’s hard to imagine them being the base of a durable pedal, but that’s exactly what they’ve accomplished…

chien king industrial extruded rice hull pedals grips packaging-4

chien king industrial extruded rice hull pedals grips packaging-3 chien king industrial extruded rice hull pedals grips packaging-5

Ignoring the small percentage of bicycle sales for performance riding, a huge amount of bikes are produced worldwide for use mainly as transportation. With those bikes, there is a tremendous amount of plastic components that aren’t exactly good for the environment, both in production and at the end of their useful life.

What Chien King has accomplished is to take something that is basically trash – discarded from rice harvesting and production in Asia, and figured out a way to blend it with a few ingredients to make a durable material. After about a year in development, CKI found the right mix between extruded rice hulls (about 60 percent) and a few environmentally friendly plastics to earn the Biopreferred label from the USDA as well as scoring zero on the Concerning Substance Standard. Not only has CKI created pedals from the material, they have also created packaging, grips, even tires which all have the potential to cut down on the amount of petrochemicals needed to create products.

chien king industrial extruded rice hull pedals grips packaging

CKI points out that not only does the process result in greener products, but it also provides farmers with another source of income since they can now sell the rice hulls they used to throw away. Their pedals have been out now for 6 months and CKI claims the durability is the same – but the alternative doesn’t have that sweet rice smell.

ckic.com.tw

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Cyclingengr
Cyclingengr
8 years ago

What a great idea!

Wrathrick
Wrathrick
8 years ago

Those will go nicely on my bamboo framed, wooden wheeled bike! (maybe not yet but I would like to build one that way)

Pynchonite
8 years ago

My dream is a carbon bike that is produced as sustainably as these pedals are. Well played, Chien King. Any word on distribution in the US?

Tywin1
Tywin1
8 years ago

That’s an awesome idea. Anything reusing waste product to replace regular plastics gets a thumbs up from me. Wonder what real world durability is like though.

typevertigo
typevertigo
8 years ago

Great tech.

I don’t suppose this would be too complicated to integrate into caged SPD clipless pedals? This might be a good idea for stuff like Shimano’s Click’R line, which are beginner-friendly SPD pedals, and most of them having a pedal cage.

chase
chase
8 years ago

(deleted)

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