Are magnesium pedals stronger then the normal alloy pedals? Are they suitable for unicycling? Also is there a big difference in sealed or non sealed bearings on pedals? thanks
No they;re wekaer, and they tend to break easily, their only advantage is that they’re a fair bit lighter. I wouldn’t use them for Muni where dropping them on rocks can break them, for freestyle or distance they might be ok. Sealed bearings means your pedals will last much longer and are usually re-buildable so can be cleaned out and re-greased repeatedly for longer life and a smoother ride.
I have magnesium pedals and I suspect what kington said is true. There is one big advantage that I find and that is that if you have good form in your grinds, I find that magnesium slides better than alloy.
I’ve had Haro Big Block magnesium pedals on my trials uni for almost a year and a half now, and the only thing that’s happened to them is the spindle is starting to get bent. Overall they’ve held up great, although I haven’t done a whole lot of grinding/pedal grabs without a grindplate on.
Sealed bearings “means” it’s harder for dirt and moisture to get into the bearings. Unsealed bearings are easier to rebuild since you don’t have to pry open the seal before you do the work. If you’re on top of your maintenance, you can get performance from unsealed bearings comparable to that of sealed bearings. The only gotcha is that you can’t easily replace the raceway in a set of unsealed pedals.
“Being on top of your maintenance” of unsealed pedals would have meant, for me, rebuilding the pedals about once every two weeks for the past four months. No thanks.
No prying involved with my sealed pedals (DMR V12s) they come apart beautifully and both the roller bearing at the outer end and the plain bearing at the inner end can be easily replaced. I do my Muni pedals every 3 months or so and they’re lasting great.
What, afraid of a little mud? What kind of pedals do you have? I’ve been thrashing my unsealed Odyssey JCs, taking 'em on the beach, through the rain and mud, etc. and just hosing 'em off when they get too crusty. They’re still performing just as well as my sealed JCs, two years and two rebuilds later.
There’s a difference between maintenance and replacement. Maintenance involves a little cleaning fluid and some fresh grease. Replacement involves buying new bearings.
Look, sealed-bearing pedals are less likely to get gunk in them and need maintenance than non-sealed-bearing pedals; it’s really that simple. If you really care about your bearings, you should never hose down anything which has non-sealed bearings, because you can drive the gunk deeper into the bearing races. It doesn’t matter all that much, as our bearings aren’t very high-performance anyway, but if I have to choose more maintenance or less maintenance, I know which way I’ll go.
so are you guys saying non sealed bearings require no maintenance and sealed ones do? and how often are you suspose to do maintenance on the pedals? do you think with the price difference sealed bearings will be worth it?
Sealed bearing pedals require very little maintenance; occasionally making sure they’re tight. Pedals without sealed bearings require maintenance if you want them to last; any time they get particularly wet, muddy, or sandy, you really should take them apart, degrease the bearing races, relube and reinstall the bearings.
In practice, that doesn’t happen, so non-sealed-bearing pedals don’t last as long as sealed-bearing pedals do. The price difference is usually minimal, and definitely worth it.
Well obviously, but if you can easily strip a pedal far enough to be able to replace components then obviously you could easily dismantle it far enough to clean it. Did you really think i was saying i change all the bearings every three months?
Look, with a good pedal design, there isn’t a huge difference between these two classes of pedals. The bearings on my non-sealed pedals aren’t just hangin’ out in the wind, they’re enclosed in a casing. The casing is sealed by a threaded cap. The sealed bearing pedals just have a second seal in 'em. Belt vs. belt-and-suspenders. It’s really that simple. (WTF?)
Last time I checked, the bearing races aren’t more than a channel in metal. How do you drive something deeper into the racing? If anything, gunk in the races just moves around, if I happen to get water in 'em. I hose things off so there’s less surface grime that could work its way into the races.
Your logic has a flaw when talking about sealed bearing maintenance. You don’t have to open the seals to replace sealed bearings, but you do have to open the seals if you want to maintain sealed bearings.
The point is, if you hit your pedals with a hose, the water can push stuff that’s sitting around the edge of the dust cap deeper into the pedals, and the water can get in there itself. Either of those things is bad news for your bearings.
Ah now i see where we’re misunderstanding each other. The seals i’m talking about are the rubber o-rings etc. on each end of the shaft between it and the pedal body which keep crap from entering the area where the bearings bear on the shaft. You’re talking about the seals built in to the bearing itself to hold grease in around the balls. Because V12s have seals on the shaft but not on the bearing itself you can get in easily to grease them but they’re still sealed well, best of both worlds.
Pedals
I was told that they would break more easily, especially when you do pedal-grabs or crank-hangs, BUT I did a lot of pedal-grabs and crank-hangs, some of them REALLY brutal and hard but they didn’t break yet.
Some of the pins broke, but the pedals didn’t braek