Anyone who rides with clipless pedals has ridden on them with street shoes. While pedals with a large platform aren't too dangerous to ride for short distances, smaller-platform pedals aren't so safe — especially if you're coming home from the bar. Enter Pub Pedals, a project by Jeff Thom that converts crankbrothers' eggbeaters into big flat pedals.
Thorn is looking to the crowd-source fundraising site Indiegogo to bring his pedal covers to market. The listed price there is $27, and final retail price will likely be close to that.
“The reason I started with eggbeaters was that they are what I ride and they're a very popular pedal,” Thom told BikeRadar.
Thom began the design process the “old fashioned” way, which was to essentially create a wooden mock-up, but new technologies including the 3D CAD (Computer Aided Design) Soldiworks program and 3D printing have allowed him to advance the project.
“Going from designing in wood by hand to Solidworks and 3D printed prototype completely changed everything,” Thom added. “The finished product looks nothing like my wood prototype. In fact we went through several revisions; printing a 3D prototype and then making refinements to the design. Then we would print another and refine some more.”
Molds for Pub Pedals
What didn’t really advance the project was taking his venture to the crowd sourcing stage. While many innovators and inventors have gotten a significant boost from Indiegogo and Kickstarter, Thom isn’t convinced it has helped with Pub Pedals.
“Maybe it would have if the time frame would have been different,” he added. “But by the time the video and everything else for the Indiegogo page were finished the designing was done and the order for the injection molds had been placed.”
Instead Thom has ventured ahead, and recently drove to the Calgary plant where the Pub Pedals are being manufactured. He is happy to report that the molds are now ready to go with the first production run ramping up.
If Pub Pedals prove successful, Thom hopes to bring out models for other pedals.
Pub Pedals clamp onto eggbeaters for a wide, street-shoe-friendly platform
“Based on my understanding the Frog and Look systems only account for about five percent (of the market),” Thom added, estimating that Shimano has about three quarters of the mountain bike pedal market. “I have sketched out ideas around creating a version of Pub Pedals that would work with those since they have enough of a uniform design that it would be possible to create something similar.”
Shimano pedals would be a tougher nut to crack.
“I would really love to make a version that work with Shimano SPDs, but due to the variety of the SPD designs it would need to be a completely different approach and I haven't solved that one yet," he said. "Maybe one day.”
The pedal covers are being made in Calgary