Equipment - Exustar Pedals

Note: I bought these pedals myself and paid more than the current MSRP for them.

Back in the late 90s I was trying to wean myself off of the Aerolite pedals. They were super light - about 70 grams per PAIR with the cleats - but I was running out of cleats and my drilled out shoes were pretty played out. Aerolites were about the most user-unfriendly pedals ever, so there was that. Finally I was pretty poor and couldn't afford to buy the in-vogue Look or Time pedals.

The Shimano SPD-Rs were very high quality pedals but they had one big drawback - the cleat often moved before the pedal would let go of said cleat. This meant that there were times where I had to ask for help unclipping from my own pedals. I usually hit the outside of my heel with a fist to unclip; just twisting my leg usually moved the cleat rather than unclipping me. I had the tension set to almost minimum, just enough to hold my feet in. Obviously this wasn't ideal.

However, at that time, the SPD-Rs were attractive to me for a different reason - price. They were super inexpensive because of their poor unclipping performance. Wholesalers sold them for less than half price. In addition I had a number of friends who tried and hated them and they gave me their pedals. I quickly built up a collection of 3 sets of Dura Ace axle pedals. Because all the wear items are steel, both on the pedal and the shoe, these pedals will last forever.

SPD-R pedals on my track bike, back before it had a real crank on it.

(This crank is a triple crankset, used temporarily while I tried out track racing)

About 10 years ago I moved from the SPD-Rs to the Look Keo Carbon pedals. The incident that really pushed me was when I had to have two people help me unclip on a group ride. I literally couldn't unclip on my own, and I started worrying if I could unclip when I rode. It was really stressful and not good at all.

When I tried the Look Keo Carbon I was happily surprised. I could release from the Keos easily without risking twisting the cleat on the shoe. I did have to max out the tension on the Keo Carbon to keep my shoes clipped in, but I didn't think that was a big deal.

The Keo Carbons.

A few years later, as my pedals started to show signs of wear, I went and bought two sets of the Look Keo 2 Max pedals. These were supposed to be the new and improved Keo Carbon. The Keo 2 Max had a metal plate on the top so the cleat wouldn't wear the pedal and ease unclipping.

(I think it's called the Keo 2 Max, it's the metal plate topped version of the Keo Carbon but with a regular plastic body. I'll call them the Keo 2 Max going forward.)

Keo 2 Max on the cranks.

I didn't bother getting a better picture of the pedals.

When I went to the Keo 2 Max I experienced a spate of unclipping incidents. I unclipped while seated, while standing, all in higher power situations. I thought it was a worn cleat (at some point my cleats were worn) or inadequate tension (I maxed out the tensions).

I reinstalled the Keo Carbons rather quickly and the unclipping incidents stopped immediately. I put the Keo 2 Max pedals on my mountain bike (which I ride on the road). Using the pedals back to back I realized that the Keo 2 Max was so easy to unclip that I was unclipping inadvertently, even on the mountain bike. The Keo Carbons held my shoes much better.

With the Keo Carbons long discontinued I didn't know what to do. The pedals were pretty worn but I continued using them. If I had to I could always go back to the SPD-Rs, which I had on my track bike. I could also go to the Shimano pedal, which others have recommended. However I wanted to stay with the Keo cleat, only because I had so many cleats. And it'd be easier to experiment if I didn't have to change the cleats, just the pedals.

I asked someone in the know for advice. He suggested trying the Exustar pedals. Look users reported the Exustar pedals a bit harder to unclip, but for me that would be ideal. I bought a couple pairs of the pedals.

And promptly misplaced them.

Fast forward a year or two to a few months ago. I was organizing some innertubes and found the Exustar pedals buried in the dozen or two innertubes. I pretty much immediately put the nicer Exustar pedals onto the bike. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I only needed about half tension to replicate the release tension of the maxed out Keo Carbons.

Exustar pedal.

White shows dirtiness quickly - these pedals are virtually brand new.

This is the Exustar E-PR2 pedal in white. They're inexpensive - MSRP $91 - and are basically a Keo Carbon type pedal. No metal plate on the pedal body, a wider platform than the PR1 (which is like the Keo Classic). Their PR3 pedals have the metal plate. The PR1 and PR3 are available with a titanium axle. For me, after breaking a titanium BB axle, I won't do titanium axles anymore, plus the weight savings are negligible in the scheme of things.

If the pedals look like the Garmin Vector powermeter pedals, you're right. Exustar makes the pedal body for Garmin, and it's basically this body except with the metal plate, the PR3. To be exact Exustar's regular pedal model with the metal plate is the Exustar E-PR3ST.

Pedals hanging.

As most pedals the PR2s hand with the nose up. This way you can slip your foot forward and you'll clip right into the pedals. The key is not to hit bumps or jerk the pedals around, else the pedals will spin.

I didn't change my cleats over so I'm still using the Keo cleats. I have many sets of cleats that I've bought over the years so I have probably 5-8 years of cleat supply on hand.

So far the PR2s have been fine for me. They're just as easy to clip in as my Look Keos but they hold my foot much more securely. I used the pedals both times I raced this year and they've been totally fine.

Equipment - Cleats: Check Them

One of the casualties of my little tumble a week ago was my Look cleats. Well, both of them, so maybe I need to write "were", not "was". Whatever, my cleats ended up a bit damaged, with bits and pieces of said items disappearing at the crash scene.

When I went to replace them I realized just how damaged they'd been.

Initial assessment - outer bit of cleat chipped off, scrapes on shoe buckle.

I realized the left shoe wasn't right at the end of the "crash ride" when my 4.5 degree float pedal all of a sudden had a Speedplay-like 37 degrees of float. Okay, I didn't measure it, but it was the same disconcerting feel I had when I first tried Speedplays. I finally unclipped (pushing the shoe the other way), thought about it, and realized that, oh, the pedal or cleat must be damaged. Lo and behold, it was.

Nice illustration of what was (left) and what should be (right). Note big chunk missing from cleat on the left.

The new cleats were much taller, much thicker, and much more plastic looking. The old cleats looked like some art student shaped some bubble gum into a cleat-shaped lump.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed something else - both cleats were cracked, heavily, at the front.

Cracks at front of cleat, both sides.

The black marks are from the Sharpie I used to mark cleat position. But look at how tan my hand is. I mean, look at the cracks at the front of the cleat. If they failed catastrophically, it'd be ugly.

So, moral of the story?

Check your cleats. Now. And if they seem sketchy, get some new ones. It's not worth risking flipping over your bars or high siding off the bike sprinting out of the turn.

Put your extra cleats (you have them, don't you?) in your gear bag. I have to go out and buy a set for my bag because those went onto my shoes.

And, yes, I replaced them before Somerville. I raced there on fresh, un-cracked cleats.

Aerolites, the struggle

Kind of appropriate. Struggling with Aerolite pedals. If it wasn't a struggle to set them up or to walk around on their cleats, we'd all be riding Aerolites. Well, I think a bit of float would help the cause too.

Yesterday I spent a couple hours grinding and filing various pieces of plastic to try and make myself an Aerolite cleat mount for a Sidi shoe. I started out with some polycarbonate but then found four Sidi SPD (i.e. the mountain bike SPD) adapters in my shoe bin. I decided to use them as the base and grind away the little cleat protecting ridges.

My goal is to use the adapter plate to get myself about 5-10 mm of shoe height. In this day and age of "reducing the foot to pedal axle distance", what possesses me to raise my foot higher? It's fit. I want to increase the delta between my seat height and bar height by 5-10 mm (more if possible). This is part of my plan to return my bike position to my "fit" days. It involves trying to either jack up my seat or dropping my stem. When I gained weight during 2000-2003, I ended up so heavy my belly hit my legs when I pedaled. You know you're heavy when that's happening. I had to raise the bars to clear my stomach. Now that I'm getting a bit better again, I'm looking to return to that blazing Cat 3 form I had back in the day. hahahaha.

(Just to clarify, I'm still a Cat 3)

Since I can't jack up the seat (seat-pedal height is correct) the reasonable alternative is to drop my stem. But it's already down low, it's a 73 degree stem, and I don't feel like milling my headtube like I did on my first Cannondale (to increase the headtube angle, if you can believe that). A deeper drop bar would work but there are none with a crit bend upper, so I'm stuck with my current bars (and they're not shallow at least).

Using a shorter crank would do it - I dropped my seat 5 mm when I put my 175's on. As I used to run 170's, I could go back to them and raise my seat 5 mm. Get more pedal speed, lose some power. I've debated this internally ever since I went to 175's and have decided that for now I'll stay with 175's. My rational is that BMX guys use super long cranks for good acceleration and they can spin pretty quickly. I haven't broken 250 rpm with 175's but I've gotten within a few rpms of that, and my max on 170 mm cranks is 286 rpm, so I'm close enough. I use the 175mm leverage on short power hills and since they're all over the crits I do, I want to keep them.

Changing pedals would do it, if the pedals were taller. Aerolites are not tall. But an adapter plate would add the height I want. And it would drop some absurd amount of weight. Even with plates etc, the pedals should be about 100-120 grams for the pair.

Anyway, with all this in mind, I've been trying to get my Aerolites back into working order.

I ended up covering a bit of my very cluttered garage with plastic shavings and got pretty good at milling with the Dremel. When I went to put on the cleat, I found that Aerolite made another boo-boo - the "SPD" holes are spaced a little too far apart. The screws don't fit squarely, and if it was a regular cleat, it wouldn't be a big deal. But the screw juts out into the actual pedal body and will muck it up. I tried different things - like other Sidis, various combinations of putting in the screws at the same time, but nothing worked.

For now, my Aerolite project is on hold. I'll probably pick it up Saturday as tomorrow is my finacee's birthday.