Sean wrote:
> Hey all. Came across a couple of auctions for these pedals. Never
heard
> of them before. Can someone fill me in on the logic of the design?
>
http://ebay.com/
and Jay replied:
> Looks like this design places the foot closer to the centerline of the
> pedal axle. Clever design!
Yes, this is a precursor to the Hi-E and Dyna-Drive pedals.
Claim was, when the foot is up above the pedal axis, it is tippy; as the foot naturally wants to find a lower position when you are pushing down, it has a tendency to rotate rather than remaining level. And your muscles have to counteract this tendency, using energy to keep the foot level, that could go into propelling the bike.
I have no way of knowing if there's anything to this claim, but even if it has some validity I kinda doubt it is very important, or we'd all be using this design. Not a very convincing argument maybe, but I do place a certain amount of faith in the blind evolution of bike design eventually leading the best designs to take over, at least where it counts.
One feature of this type of pedal that might help some folks is it makes your handlebars effectively 1.5 cm higher, since you have to lower the saddle by about that much. Only an advantage for someone having trouble getting the bars high enough -- not something a racer wants, but for old farts in the era before Technomic stems...
Mark Bulgier
Seattle WA USA