After 8 months of foul-weather testing, here’s our review of the OneUp Components Aluminum Flat Pedals | Road Bike Clipless Pedals

Weighing 278g for the pair, they might be heavier than some but this trade-off is worth it because they are such good quality, reliable and durable pedals that don’t break the bank.

Competitive cyclists now often ride with a power meter and many of the options available are pedal-based.

Each pedal consists of a stainless steel bar with an inner flange and slight taper at the outside edge. The pedal is a little wider than the cleat, so there’s some fudge room to clip in. But I found the strongest bite when the cleat butted up against the flange.

One of the other advantages of clipless pedals is that you can get more power out of your legs by being able to pull up on the pedal stroke in addition to pushing down however, this highlights the disadvantage of multi-release cleats since if you pulled up on these your foot would come out of the pedal. 

“With a claimed weight of just 298 grams, Gamut’s Podium flat pedals are the lightest we have on test. They’re also the thinnest, with the slenderest part at just under 9mm, average at the edges around 10mm, and axle housing at the centre of the body still only 13.5mm. That’s not much space to pack moving parts in, but they’ve managed…” Read the full review here.

That said – definitely not a beginnner setup. Tightening the cleat screws even .5nm too much and you can compress part of the housing enough to give you issues with the spring. Breaking in the spring must be a hell of a time for a light rider, and if the missus moves on to them (I have bought her some, but after realising the initial learning curve she lost interest), I’ll have to break the spring in for her. Also actually finding the pedal isn’t just step down and go – you have a few cm wide circle under you foot that you need to mount so like Keo’s etc, you still need to develop muscle memory.

You might think flat pedals are a solved problem, but the answer is ‘not quite’. In mountain biking and BMX history, flat pedal design has zeroed in on a couple of distinct pedal shapes, but is still evolving. Let me take you through a few bits of terminology and engineering.

Speedplay pedals are always touted as being super light, but the cleat on the shoe looks like it weighs a lot more than a simple plastic look type cleat. Out of interest what is the total system weight including cleats for the lightest from each brand?

Dan Bendiksen waits at a stoplight in downtown Vancouver on his e-bike during his commute to work. Nathan Howard/The Columbian var objLink = new myC_Remote.BuyLink(); objLink.LinkContent = "<span" class="btn btn-warning btn-xs pull-right btn-buyphoto">Buy this photo"; objLink.IsAboveImage = false; objLink.LinkTarget = "_blank"; objLink.Render();

The main benefit for me is the lack of maintainance If you do all your own mechanics and don’t have that much time it’s fantastic. I have had to replace a front derailleur but that was my fault and other than oiling and cleaning it’s set and forget. I went disc on my new bike and had to dump di2 because of the additional cost but I’m regretting it now constant adjustments to keep it running smooth

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Also into my third year but with EPS. Haven’t regretted it for a second. Effortless and trouble free gear changing especially when braking. I’m thinking of replacing my touring bike and I hope I can get it fitted with triple electronic shifting.