fwiw I never ended up doing this. My one and only failure with Eggbeaters is because I replaced the spindles myself with aftermarket Ti spindles, likely didn’t get a perfect seal when I did, and didn’t service them at all for 3+ years. The bearings corroded completely and caused the failure.
I opened 2nd pair of them that I’d had for just as long but hadn’t mucked with and did the refresh kit, but those ones looked fine inside regardless.
I’m still riding Crankbrothers pedals on all my off road bikes mostly because I didn’t feel like changing everything over to different cleat and pedal system, but have no real reservations about it anyway. I’ll likely just do a refresh kit every 2 years.
I rode eggbeaters/Candies for years on all my bikes, road, mtb, cross, etc. Would never do so again after switching to XTRs. They are great at shedding mud but are otherwise full of flaws. They feel vague when clipping in and out, there is a lot of play when youre actually clipped in which sometimes feels like youre not clipped in, and they fall apart after relatively short use. Theyre also the only pedal Ive used where I accidentally clipped out when landing a jump on my cross bike. My ankle hit the pedal spindle and I nearly crashed. Would never ride them again. I also had the Ti version for what its worth. Theyre all the same.
That sounds like the ski bindings I learned to ski on. Spademan bindings were infamous for releasing if I caught any air. They could be cranked down, but they tended to pop for any reason. People complained about them, but for rentals, that was the only option so people trying to learn to love skiing were stuck trying to avoid a huge yard sale with every crash. I couldn’t wait to get my own skis so I could stay on my skis.
I don’t think that’s an apt comparison. Crankbrothers pedals have a less positive feedback as to whether you are clipped in and more natural float. But it is exceedingly rare to get unintentionally clipped out, at least in my experience. I can think of maybe three occasions in 10, 15 years. With Shimano pedals the failure mode in my experience has been not releasing the cleat. Which led to a similar amount of incidents (crashes).
The characterization of the feel and the float is correct, but that cuts both ways. I wish my knees could take Shimano pedals, because Shimano pedals in my experience need zero maintenance and I haven’t had one fail on me. Plus, I genuinely prefer the feel of Crankbrothers pedals.
On the road bike I got used to Shimano pedals, but I always toy with the idea of getting Speedplays.
Yes, on my road bike, yes. (I know we are talking about mountain bikes.)
Just to clarify: I have used Shimano SPD (i. e. MTB) pedals and SPD-SL Ultrgra pedals for years, too. I tried SPDs twoish, threeish years ago for the last time. So my comment on the reliability of their pedals is based on that experience.
I loved SpeedPlay pedals: pre-buyout. Their post-buyout cleats are a disaster. (They rusted out pretty quickly on me (unless they changed them since (I really liked the original pre-buyout aluminum cleats, but they were tough to break-in, and did have the chance of breaking)))
I have a new in-box pair of Speedplays and haven’t installed them because of cleat drama.
I use SPD-SL on the gravel bike, so probably should have kept quiet on my opinions. I didn’t go SPD because I don’t have a pair of cooler shoes. Use what you want, use what works for you. I’m sure some would rip me for SL pedals on a gravel bike, but whatever.
But the Spademan thought was also from a blog I remember reading a long time ago about someone who also learned to ski (crash?) on those bindings, and was about to give it up when they traveled to a different state and rented ‘real’ skis with real bindings on them, and never looked back. Those bindings lessened his skiing enjoyment, and it was only after seeing the benefit of spending more money to get their own skis with real bindings that their world opened up big and bright. I certainly enjoyed biking after swapping my toe clip/traps for the Look pedals. (Ironic, maybe, that the first ‘real’ ski bindings I bought were also Looks?)
I just remembered looking at Eggbeater pedals and wondering how they actually work. They look like they shouldn’t work! So simple, elegant, interesting… I always wondered if they had a lot of lateral movement, but I have enough different pedal types to add another one… SPDs do what they do so well, a simple design that works, but it’s not one size fits all. Some use them for everything.
I have been a Speedplay rider literally since the day they came out….still have a pair of the original, all-aluminum body pedals somewhere. Never touched them in terms of maintenance.
While the new cleats aren’t great, I don’t really have that big of an issue with them personally.
I did just have a great customer service experience with Wahoo and the pedals…my Powerlink pedals were not reading correctly (at least 15% low). Contacted them and they asked me to send a FIT file and pics of the pedals installed. I submitted them and they noted there were scratches / scrapes on the pods and said it looked like I had hit them (fair assumption on their part). They asked for pics of the cleats as well, which I submitted and told them that the scratches were not from hitting the pedals, but just from taking off the front wheel and resting the bike down and the cranks would contact the ground (true story).
They then said they would extend the warranty (they were 2 years old) and asked me to “retire” them by destroying the threads. Once I submitted pics of the “retirement”, they would send me new pedals. Pics submitted on Thursday, new pedals arriving today.
All in all, pretty painless and great customer support.
(I took the pedals to my bench grinder to destroy the threads……it hurt my heart a little to trash $800 pedals!!)
Indeed. Cost is the biggest factor that’s holding me back. You can get the second-best Eggbeaters/Candys for XT/XTR pedal money. Even Wahoo’s dumb Speedplays cost 230 €. (The cheapest ones cost 150 €, but apparently are not made from rust free steel …)
Now that you mention it, I did have those problems, too. I have always had strong legs (I am a lifelong cyclist after all) and could get to release the binding on my right leg when carving. We had to adjust the tension to prevent that from happening.
For the self-disassembling issue, if you’re determined to stick with Eggbeaters, you can periodically check if the top cap is tight. It can back out on some editions, and this is what causes the pedal to fly apart. Normally we don’t think to check our top caps, if we have pedals built on that principle, because they don’t normally work themselves loose.
That said, the older Speedplay pedals had a top retaining bolt, and they loctited it down. Maybe to stop the pedals from self-disassembling?
I’ve only always used Eggbeaters for MTB and got some Candy’s for gravel as I felt the extra platform was a benefit. I have NEVER had the reliability issues that others refer to - I weigh 190lbs. I do service somewhat regularly which only entails removing the body from the spindle, cleaning and regreasing - it takes no more than 10 minutes. Lastly, they are easily rebuildable and serviceable with inexpensive kits from Crank Bros. Just like everything I imagine: if you look after them, they’ll last forever.
Yeah, but I went the extra step and made sure they couldn’t be installed. I didn’t want to have to go back and forth with them as to whether they had been sufficiently damaged.
And other than just having them as backup dumb pedals, as you note, there is no real point.
Not to flog this more, but the Spademan’s were totally random. I had days where they were solid, but then other days when either would release. Some said it was the plate on the boot, others said it was the clamps that grabbed the plate, and other said it was FOD on the bottom of the plate/top of the clamps. I had yard sales rather embarrassingly frequently due to the number of times I was skiing, and thought that the company running the outfit should be sued!
Funny side story: I ran into a bike/ski shop that was going out of business and they had a really wide variety of skis on a ledge that ran around all of the rooms in the store. They had some really old skis and some that were just odd, and others that were exotic (I recognized some of them) and some very obscure ones too.
UNTIL!! I saw a pair of THE skies, with THE bindings on the ledge in the back area of the store. The price was far more than I would ever want to pay for that nightmare, but I was curious. The next time I was there, there was a ‘SOLD’ tag on them. I asked if whoever bought them paid the asked for price. No one know, but they said they were ‘SOLD’, and I’d have to find out who bought them to see what they paid, and possibly make them an offer. Yeah, pay potentially more than they were already asking for them? I mean, if they were $40, I’d be all in and have bought them that very day. Over a hundred? (I think they were asking $200 ) Yeah, and what else were they throwing in at that price? Some chains, cassettes, stems, bars? But it was shocking that they were THAT model ski, and THOSE creepy bindings, and THAT flashback, all for free standing there looking at them…
) Yeah, and what else were they throwing in at that price? Some chains, cassettes, stems, bars? But it was shocking that they were THAT model ski, and THOSE creepy bindings, and THAT flashback, all for free standing there looking at them…