I’ve recently started riding my little 20" uni again, for jumping around on rather than off-roading. While the main problem is that Malvern appears to have no benches or walls of just the right height for learning stuff on, I’m wondering about what pedals other people use.
At the moment I’ve got metal pedals with studs in; nice and grippy, admittedly, but I’m somewhat worried about the studs chewing up whatever I’m jumping on, especially if it’s a wooden bench or something.
However a quick look on unicycle.uk.com doesn’t reveal much choice… various different styles of studded pedal or cheap plastic things. However my left eyebrow raises whenever I see the pedals with rubber bits in… but are they strong enough?
just my two cents worth, but what about buying an extra pair of pinned
pedals, and unscrewing/yanking the pins from one side of each pedal. not
something you’d want to use for freestyle, but for trials your feet pretty
much stay glued to the things, so it shouldn’t be too much of a
disadvantage.
i have this same pang of conscience myself, when it comes to [attemtping to
learn] pedal and crank grabs… i have yet to find a suitable concrete
bench, or construct my own apparatus for practicing on… everything i’ve
found is wood or plastic. where’s good old stone-age technology when you
need it?
posting from outlook express,
in the absence of unicyclist.com:
John M
(billnye)
I have another pedal concern… My semcycle XLW came with the cheap plastic odyssey twisted pc pedals. After doing some trials on them, my pedals each make clicking sounds when I ride, and I can feel each click in my feet. My cranks are fine, so it’s definitely the pedals. I wonder if this means I need to buy new pedals, or if I can just keep using them, living with the clicking.
In article <cybeross.8okjz@timelimit.unicyclist.com>,
cybeross <cybeross.8okjz@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
)
)I have another pedal concern… My semcycle XLW came with the cheap
)plastic odyssey twisted pc pedals. After doing some trials on them, my
)pedals each make clicking sounds when I ride, and I can feel each click
)in my feet. My cranks are fine, so it’s definitely the pedals. I
)wonder if this means I need to buy new pedals, or if I can just keep
)using them, living with the clicking.
It would be better to try to address the clicking problem. First, make
sure the pedals are seated tightly in the cranks–a loose pedal can
round out the crank hole, which is a really nasty problem.
The most likely cause, though, is in the bearings. Take off the dust
cap on the end of the pedal axle. Pedal bearings are sort of annoying to
deal with unless you have extremely small fingers, but you should at least
be able to check if the end nut is on tightly. The right thing to do is to
unscrew the end nut, take the pedal off the axle, chase after all the ball
bearings (unless the bearings are sealed, which is probably unlikely on
cheap pedals), clean off the bearing races, apply grease liberally,
try to get all those damn bearings back in (replacing them is better),
and reinstall the pedal.
That might not solve your problem, but I’d expect it to in most cases,
unless something’s actually broken. If something’s actually broken,
your pedal will fall apart reasonably soon.
-Tom
