Black Friday: The best road bike deals – Bike | Carbon Fahrrad Umwerfer Installationssatz

Flats on the DH bike, enduro, xc and cross bike, clips on the road bike and that’s only because you look daft in fivetens and lycra.

While it may not be my style, I can certainly understand this impulse—after all, you never outgrow wanting to go outside and play with your toys with your friends, and trying to clean that trickly line is no different than shooting hoops or pitching horseshoes or working on any other methodical physical pursuit.

Bontrager might be Trek’s in-house component brand, but these Line Pro flat pedals stand on their own merit thanks to tough construction and plenty of tuneable grip. The Line Pros can suck up the punishment and offer plenty of traction. At 420g for the pair, they’re moderately heavy for the money, but that’s certainly offset by the fact they’ve lasted extremely well. Bontrager might not be the first brand you’d look to, but you’d definitely miss out if you ignore these. The only small issue is that if you want a set in this rather lovely orange, then sorry, the only colour currently available is black.

The Downs are essentially hewn from a large lump of limestone which stretches from Surrey to Kent, south of London. The stretch west of Dorking, where I’m busy parking the car and trying to find the least puddled bit of gravel to do so, is comprised of a startlingly profuse pile of woodland (I understand the technical term is forest but that’s much too dull) which is, in turn, rammed to the gunwhales with trails. It’s a little slice of heaven that people from the Big Smoke retreat to in times of stress (that’s all the time then) to relax, recuperate, and – naturally – ride mountain bikes.

Can you handle that? No-one here is saying Surly sucks and didn’t know how to use Speedplays. So don’t take offence. We’re not saying we’re more skilled than you, or more technical than you, or better riders than you. We just got on with them, you didn’t.

Disagree with the Speedplay comments above. I moved to them this year and yes I hated them for a few weeks and was considering eBaying them.

But even now, after a good couple of hours, we’re not done. Trails through regions with names like ‘Old Simm’s Copse” and “Colekitchen Hole” have us whooping with delight; the nearby Effingham Forest’s “Dick Focks Common” leaves the less mature of us chortling for other reasons.

Another option for shoe manufactures is to use Velcro straps, sometimes in combination with a ratchet strap or a Boa dial (see below) as on these Fizik M6B Donna shoes. There are usually two or three Velcro straps and these can be placed in an offset design to reduce pressure over the foot. Velcro is quick and easy to use and they hold the shoe firmly in place, but it is easy to overdo tightening one and end up feeling like part of your foot has been clamped, we found it hard to adjust the Velcro on the Giro Manta shoes we reviewed recently but this isn’t always the case, the Fizik shoe design worked well.

I installed the tyres the same way I install tubeless mountain bike tyres: install one bead fully and then the second one most of the way around. This leaves a small gap into which the sealant can be poured without having to squeeze it through the valve stem (with the valve removed). I am glad I did it this way because the Mavic sealant is aggressive at blocking leakages. I couldn’t get much sealant out of the bottle before the sealant sealed the bottle. With around 30ml of sealant in the tyre, I carefully installed the remaining bead – which is much easier without a tube inside.

Having tested the Speciales all summer and early autumn, I haven’t encountered enough mud to comment on how well they cope with dirt. That said, Time pedals usually perform well in grotty conditions, which bodes well for these.

Shimano GR5 Shimano’s most affordable flat pedal offering. Claimed weight 386g in size 40. $103 USD.

By the way, I’d suggest adding the Deore XT PD-T780 or PD-T8000 pedals – they’re top dog as far as trekking SPD+FLAT pedals are concerned. My pair of T780s has been excellent since day one.