Get the dirt on stuff before you run out and drop coin
It’s rained a lot in SoCal recently, we’ve already received our year’s worth of rainfall in the past couple of storms. So when I was slipping a pedal here and there, I had 2 options (since I already have Five10s):
1) Buy new pedals… uhhh. These are still new.
2) Modify existing pedals. Ding Ding! Winna! Winna!
Sourcing your pins:
Home Depot is for moms! Go to a real hardware store. They’ll have what you need and you can actually find help when you walk through the door. Bring in an existing pin off the pedal or better yet, bring in the pedal too. This will help you find what size / length pins you need. Usually they run in increments of 2mm in length. I got all 16 pins for under 75¢.
Plan out your work:
In case you didn’t notice. Most pedals are designed with an offset where the contact surface (with your shoe) is pushed forward and the opposite side is pulled back, but regardless of which side your foot makes contact, all the pins will be exactly in the same position. Also, keep in mind that there is a left and right pedal and their pin positions are designed as such. So lay them out on a table and mark the pins you’ll be replacing for each side (pic 2).
Get ‘er done fast:
I did 4 pins on each side so that’s 16 total, it goes pretty fast. Do each process before going to the next. Example: Clean all pins first (pic 3), Remove all the old pins second (pic 4), and so on.
Parting Words:
I chose to do 4 longer pins on each side, you may choose to do more, it’s all preference. I find that fewer longer pins where I want them is more effective in giving me that extra bite. If they were all long, I’d just be raising my feet off the pedals more. If you need to replace broken pins in the future, you now know where to get them and the process for replacing them.
Happy Trails!!!
By Qwan Pham
