First Look: OneUp Aluminum Pedals
A wide, grippy and low-profile flat pedal
Seldom used during racing and misunderstood by many riders, flat or platform pedals have a lot of advantages over the cleated variety and are not ‘just for beginners’…
Flat pedals are a great tool to help you build skills as they teach you to bias your body weight into the pedal; an essential technique to smashing trails. The confidence gained from being able to dab easily will help you improve things like corner speed, jumping, flow and overall commitment to the trail. Those gains translate when you shift back to the cleated variety. Even the very best racers in the world regularly sharpen their skills, by riding with flat pedals.
The OneUp Aluminum flat pedals are a burly-looking structure in a lightweight package, with a wide, 115mm platform and 10 pins per side. The pins screw in from the opposite side of the pedal, a design that prevents the heads from damage.
Details
- 6061 T6 Aluminum construction
- Chromoly Steel Axle
- Ultra-thin leading edge
- Sealed yet serviceable bearing design
- Contoured shape
- 10 Pins per side
- 115mm wide
- 8-12mm high
- 386 grams per pair
- 8 colours
- ± R2 695
- Learn MORE
The shape of the pedal body, length and layout of the pins have a major impact on the feel of a flat pedal. On closer examination, it’s evident the Canadian crew at OneUp has paid a lot of attention to these details. The result is a body shape that helps the pedal deflect off obstacles yet the pin length is adjusted to create the highly-desired feel of a concave-shaped pedal. Simply put, they are designed so the shoe will ‘sit into’ the pedal.
Further alleviating the chance of potentially disastrous pedal strikes, is the thin and chamfered leading edge which should help the pedal slide up and over trail debris. Inside, everything spins on a chromoly steel axle with four bearings per pedal. Opening the pedal to regrease everything requires no special tooling, a cassette lock ring remover does the trick.
If you are new to the flat pedal thundering you might be wondering whether to go for a composite or aluminum construction. Whilst composite versions are generally more affordable, their downsides are durability and they usually have a higher stack height, which reduces stability.
At first look, the OneUp Aluminum platforms appear to be an excellent offering for Trail, eMTB and gravity sending. The grip on offer is phenomenal.