I must confess that, before my stroke, when I rode a standard diamond frame mountain bike, I never thought about pedals. Never.
I didn’t need to, you know? Most cyclists don’t think about them, I’m pretty sure, because they aren’t an issue on an upright bike. They’re just there, the place where your feet go to make the bike go.
On a recumbent trike, however, it’s an entirely different matter. The biggest reason why is foot retention on the pedal. Unlike an upright, your feet are not below you, soles down; they’re out front, soles pointed away and heels down. So, it’s not hard to have your feet slip from the pedals, and it’s not far for them to go to hit the ground. And should they hit the ground, well, there’s the very real danger of what trikists call “foot suck”, where your leg gets sucked under the cruciform arm of the trike.
And that’s a great way to quickly end your trike ride, and possibly your trike career, with a trip to the hospital.
So, of course, there are two ways to maintain foot retention: toe clips and foot/heel straps, or “clipless” pedals, the kind where your shoe snaps into the pedal. Either of those is considered essential for trikists. For me, because of the particulars of my disability, namely one side that completely lacks coordination and proper muscle control, straps are right out due to the difficulty in adjusting them. I’m stuck with clipless pedals.
My first set was just a standard MTB set of clipless pedals, of the SPD variety. Nothing more than the actual hardware itself, with no platform to them.
They worked, in that they held my feet to the pedals, and didn’t require me to wear absurd road shoes that are actually hard to walk in. But they introduced me to a new problem: “hot feet”. More accurately, nerve compression syndrome (NCS). There is a lot of info out there about NCS, and it’s not exclusive to trikists, but it was new to me. With those pedals above, it would strike me within a few miles of riding.
That set me on track to find a new set of pedals, and fast. No time for online shopping and shipping, even two-day Amazon Prime. To the LBS!!
Which got me these:
And they’re good. Not great, but good. I can get 15-20 miles on them before the “hot foot” kicks in and I have to stop, strip the shoes, and do some stretches and massage a bit. Which, again, good. But as I contemplate and train for longer rides, I need to not have to stop for 30 minutes every 20 miles just to keep from destroying my feet permanently.
Enter the Funn Mambo dual SPD platform pedals:
These are big! Not just comparatively to the Shimano, but on their own big.
I’ve yet to test ride them, because winter just will not give up here, but I’ve got them and man what a difference! Time will tell if this is the final answer I seek, but I’m pleased so far.
Except….
I know why these, as big MTB platforms, are angled the way they are, so as not to dig in on tight dirt corners, et cetera, but I’d rather that they were better centered under the arch of the foot, like this:
Conventional wisdom has it that proper pedal placement is under the ball of the foot (just behind the toes). Conventional wisdom is, as it frequently is, wrong in this case. Proper pedal placement, for comfort, foot health, and power transfer, is centered under the arch of the foot. You don’t pedal the way you walk or run.
So now I’m adding to my tool kit again, a set of hex Torx wrenches and a travel Torx set, so I can flip the cleats on the pedals and swap their axles, so they fit like the photo above. That story comes next week(ish), after those tools get here.
Hopefully before then I’ll have had a chance to do some rides.
Read part two here.
Tastes Like Tofu 