Originally Posted by Jobyl
No, it's not.
Sheldon says:
"The right pedal has a normal thread, but the left pedal has a left (reverse) thread.
The reason for this is not obvious: The force from bearing friction would, in fact, tend to unscrew pedals threaded in this manner. The fact is, however, that it is not the bearing friction that makes pedals unscrew themselves, but a phenomenon called "precession".
You can demonstrate this to yourself by performing a simple experiment. Hold a pencil loosely in one fist, and move the end of it in a circle. You will see that the pencil, as it rubs against the inside of your fist, rotates in the opposite direction."
The easy pedal remedy is to get a set of tandem captain (front) cranks as they have a timing ring on the left that goes back to the stokers timing ring. Many bmx crank-bottom bracket system are designed to run a spider on either side to accomodate left or right side freewheels.
Left handed threading on left hand pedals was a Wright Brothers invention. Before that, there was a tendency for the left pedal to crank itself off in time.
Right side freewheels/sprockets came about because with right hand threads on the freewheel and hub were standard and did not require the extra tooling cost for making left handed theading as would be needed for left side freewheel.
There are bmx hubs and single speed freewheels available with left hand threads for left side mounting.