Hey everyone, welcome!
When I heard the quote "Bikes are better with pedals so we built some!"
I knew that I had to take a closer look at the new PNW Loam pedals.
These are the first flats that are produced by the Pacific Northwest so let's take a closer look at them!
And I put the Shimano SAINT pedal in front of you because it feels like we've been using them forever.
Well guess what, PNW comes with lifetime warranty just like their dropper,
the Loam dropper comes with lifetime warranty
you probably remember that I did a review on this one not too long ago.
and compared to some of the newer flat pedals in the marketplace these have a more interesting shape to say the least.
If I had the aluminum version of these OneUp pedals the design would be very similar to the PNW Loam, again, aside from the shape.
PNW offers just two dimensions for this, 105mm x 115mm
This would be your 115mm length
but for this other dimension they provide 105, 105 as in millimeters.
But I have to go two thirds towards the edge of the pedal to get to that 105
because here at the tip we're starting with 95 mm and at the widest point is close to 11 centimeters
that's very very similar to what the OneUp pedal provides here.
Also interesting is that compared to the good old SAINT, these new pedals are actually a bit shorter
so you have a slightly wider Q-factor here
mostly because of the axle otherwise the platform on the older pedals is not as big as these.
But one other reason why I brought these into the discussion is because the shape of these older pedals is clearly concave.
You see it's narrow here in the middle, wider at the edges.
Compared to that you can see these newer pedals are actually convex
meaning that they're thicker in the middle than they are at the edges.
That seems to be uniform you see my ruler rocking on that center axle
and I'm sure you want to know the thickness we're talking close to 11 millimeters here on the edges
the middle of it is 16mm, so 5 millimeter difference between the thickness here and the thickness in the middle.
Compared to that you see the Shimano Saint pedals being concave not convex
but when you get here to the axle it is actually flat, so the axle portion and the rest of the platform are at the same level.
Maybe that's one of the reasons why they could get away with these tinier or shorter pins.
These pins here on the side of the pedal are 3 millimeter in length
and that 3 millimeter is very close to these smaller pins that you see on the PNW
the ones on the edge, these pins are 5.5 millimeters so quite a bit taller.
The tallest pin on this platform though is this one here, another millimeter so 6.5 millimeters long
and that's where that's closer to the toes because this is the right pedal, yeah.
However if you look from this side you're gonna see that
even though this is the longest pin it is actually lower than everything else and maybe that's why
they call this "Concave without being too concave"
even though these pedals are definitely convex.
Also the pins on the PNW are just tall and smooth as opposed to either the Shimano or the OneUp
that have that like a thread cut into them
hard to tell if that gives you a better grip though.
Otherwise these are designed very similar to the OneUp aluminum pedals, you have that big bearing race right here close to the axle,
axle that is chromoly, so you have one big bearing over there
and either a bushing or another tiny bearing somewhere in here.
These are fully rebuildable, they will have service kits as well as replaceable pins for order
they're not available right now but I expect that to be soon on their site.
The bulge of this bearing race is again very similar to OneUp, I don't know if this would affect my riding in any way.
Again these are a bit shorter than something like a Saint pedal
so if you were to keep your foot really close to it I guess you would feel it
but I think these pedals are a bit more gravity oriented so if you keep your foot planted right here in the middle
there's no reason why this bulge will be in your way.
And like with any pedals, you definitely want them to run smoothly
but you also want to make sure they don't spin too freely these petals are..I think 7years old
and you can see they spin a couple of times and they stop.
As opposed to that the PNW actually spins a bit too easily for me especially straight out of the box
This can be a problem if you slip a pedal because then it might be hard for you just to find the pedal again.
There's no service manual posted yet on the PNW site but I'm sure you can tighten the axle a little bit, again
for my taste these are spinning too freely right now and both pedals are the same so no difference between them.
Not a lot of graphical elements on the pedals but you see here R and L respectively
telling you exactly which pedal goes on the non-drive side (L) which one goes on the drive side (R).
And for installation they provide you with a couple of pedal washers
and they recommend using an 8 millimeter Allen key that's how you would install these.
Apply some grease to the threads and always remember to turn the axle towards the front of the bike to install.
By the way, they recommend 35 Nm to tighten these up.
Aside from the washers there's nothing else in the box but here on the back you're gonna see that these are made in Taiwan
and they provide you an installation manual easy to get to using that QR code.
Weight specified by PNW is 445g for the set, so 223g for the first pedal
same for second so here's your 445g, so weight is dead on even though these pedals are not the lightest in the category.
But they come in 3 colors and they are pretty aggressively priced compared to the competition.
So what do you guys think?
Does anybody still uses his flats out there?
Are you interested in these new PMW Loan pedals?
Are you interested in their lifetime warranty?
Let me know in the comments below!
Also let me know if you have been using composite pedals as opposed to aluminum
and until next time hope to see you folks on the trails.
Cheers guys, cheers!