Originally Posted by
Campag4life
Where I am at as well. To me, Speedplay Zeros are the best compared to all other pedals I have tried.
That said, OP, I applaud your ingenuity for sure. Hell of an effort whether you capture a following or not.
There are so many issues that determines the effectiveness and efficiency of 'the best pedal system'.
A suggestion is as I come from the world of product development. If earnest about marketing your pedals, liability will be your biggest challenge. Will the pedals hurt somebody? This is BIG in the world of developing new products and in fact, a major consideration of guys like Bruce or me considering your design. Test to failure needs to be examined. Development...proper vetting of a given product takes a tremendous effort of time and discipline. Even then, sometimes interactions occurs causing inadvertent failure.
For example. You may make 100 in a row off prototype or early production tooling and they perform perfectly. But can you manufacture 10,000 off of combinations of tooling and machining runs that won't break or inadvertently clip out putting a rider into the pavement. Even Speedplay has had Ti spindle failures.
There is a document engineers use when creating a new product. It is called, a Design Failure Modes and Effects Analysis. This document prioritizes risk. Design verification testing is performed for example on the margins of the tolerances of the design. You will be manufacturing your pedals to tolerances. Will tolerance extremes work together?...cleat to pedal? How about metallurgy? Will you test coupon samples in a lab to ensure the material you make your product out of is to spec. What metallurgy should you choose to ensure design robustness? These are real challenges.
Liabilility aka the probability someone may get hurt is a big factor if you want to take your pedals into the big leagues.
Other thing is...you must give consumers a reason to switch. Weight? Stack height? Price? Ease of maintenance? Replaceable bearings? Fore/Aft adjustability? Varus Adjustment?
From a marketing standpoint, you want to create a matrix showing how you stack up to the competition to again, give prospective buyers a reason to switch.
So those are some tips and of course I and likely all here wish you the best. One heck of an effort to create a workable pedal system and well done. Taking it to the next level is a lot of work and I hope you achieve success and your hard work is rewarded.
Thank you for all of this valuable info. As I had mentioned we are working with a bike company right now. I think that they are probably going through all of that type of testing right now. I can only say that I am a larger rider, being over 200lbs and I have ridden with the prototypes for 2 years with zero signs of failure. The product is so simple it will be easy to be reproduced many times. The cleats come out of a mold and the pedals themselves would come out of a self fed CNC lathe. So the accuracy should be very high. Thank you again for all the input.
Originally Posted by
goenrdoug
and this view from the bottom might help to illustrate:
Added red material for a walkable surface with the cross-hatched part being harder and helping to guide the spindle toward the metal tongue thingie...
Thank you for taking the time to look at this. That is a valuable idea. As far as walking in the shoe, they are not a walking shoe or anything like that, but you can definitely walk in them without much difficulty. In a video I posted a while back I had walked 2 miles in the new plastic cleat. It did shoe wear but had no problems with engaging right away, and I'm still riding with the same cleat.