The folks at Fly Pedals have improved the Fly Pedals II system by significantly decreasing weight and adding traction pins. The bottoms are drilled for both mountain two bolt and road three bolt holes and fit most clipless pedals.
If you are anything like me, you switched to clipless pedals long ago and have the next-to-useless platform pedals that came with your new bikes buried deep down in boxes and still wrapped in their original plastic. You also have friends that you would like to take on a bike ride and have the bike they could use already picked out, however, there is just one massive annoyance. Those clipless pedals on your bike will not be suited for their street shoes for any distance longer than a ride around the parking lot.
Furthermore, with several types of clipless pedals available, there is a good chance that your pedals will not work with their unique shoe cleats. That is, in fact, if they even brought their riding shoes when they came to visit. So, do you offer up your bike for a fun trail or road ride regardless of the installed clipless pedals? Do you take hours out of your life by dredging out the stock platform pedals to install, if you still have them? What other options are there other than going to the bike shop down the street and renting a bike for the day? Well, Fly Pedals have weighed in their answer to that question impressively with their unique pedal system, the Fly Pedals II.
The folks over at Fly Pedals have improved upon their platform pedal system with the Fly Pedals II by significantly decreasing weight and adding traction pins over their waffled predecessors. They have created a unique system where you can install your own clipless pedal cleats to their platform. The bottoms are drilled for both mountain two bolt and road three bolt holes and fit most clipless pedals.
The Fly Pedals II fit my road Time Iclick and Expresso cleats as well as my mountain Shimano cleats. As I write this review their website has compatibility listings for all Shimano, Look Keo, Keo2Max, S-Track & Delta, Crank Bros Egg Beaters & Candy, Time Attack, Click & RSX, Infinity, and Speedplay pedal systems. At an impressive 134 grams per pair they are light enough to appeal to practically anyone. They also have molded holes in the platform that will fit the traction pins on both platforms for sleek and unexpected storage design.
I have them clipped into my Shimano XTR Trail Pedals and they are nice and sturdy. The Carbon RaceFace Next SL cranks are a nice touch when putting these platform pedals to the test. The Fly Pedals II will also support a quick strap for extended use if needed. Their included instructions are easy to follow, and the packaging is simple and efficient with just enough room for the pedals.
Each pedal has 12 traction pins that will grab and offer a great connection to your street shoes when pedaling. The arrows in the design of the Fly Pedals II can play tricks with your mind when attaching your cleats but the bolt pattern and the arrow in the middle will get you back on track if you seem a little visually lost. Still, I like the weightlessness of the design, and the holes will no doubt shed mud and debris leaving the engagement of the traction pins fresh in the wet. They can also be removed from your clipless pedals by a 6mm Allen wrench.
The Fly Pedals II clip in with ease just like your shoes would, and they promptly flip over just like your shoes would. I had initially thought that the pedals balance would be a problem during the install but found during testing that it was easy enough to flip them back over on the fly so to speak. They have been residing on my fat bike for the last few months, and it has been awesome to just think about riding and then just grabbing the fat bike and going out without the additional time it takes to get my riding shoes on. It also has the added benefit of not limiting me to a single expensive pair of riding shoes.
For instance, during the winter, I could use my Sorels or my Muck boots when I was still trying to pony up the cash for the Wolvhammer’s I had been reading about. I wouldn’t have to sacrifice my toes to the cold of winter with a lesser weighted cycling shoe. And, I didn’t have to go out to the garage and use my tools to remove the clipless pedals and install those dreaded cheap platforms that I have.
I could also take a quick ride to an event or the store or a friends house without having to rely on walking around with my cycle shoes after I got there. With these, in comparison to a top gear episode, you do not have to worry about their performance breaking down to the point that you have to go back to the dreaded platform waiting in the wings.
When you are riding these pedals, every time you lift your foot far enough for the pedals to flip around they will flip around which is most likely why Fly Pedals has added their nifty warning for casual use only on the outside of the box. I don’t see this as a problem unless you were using them to race with or you were post-holing in the snow and if you were post-holing then flipping the pedal around would undoubtedly be the least of your problems!
During spring and summer riding with the Fly Pedals II, I found the hookup of the fat tires on the dirt to be an insane nirvana and the traction pins on the pedals to be confident and composed. Sprinting or hamming the pedals will leave your feet planted and your shins free of pedal pin carnage. Just like everyone should have a chance to try a fat bike on miles of smooth winding dirt single track, these pedals from fly pedals go well beyond their niche and come close to providing the ride comfort and confidence of a platform pedal.
These pedals are not a platform pedal replacement for obvious reasons. I would not be using these pedals at a bike park for even more obvious reasons but for yourself and your friends on trails that will not see much foot lifting or trick jumping but still plenty of other shenanigans, these pedals will save you the work of installing platforms and the cost of renting a bike for the day.
I discovered these through a Facebook advertisement a few months back, they looked cool and answered an age-old question of mine. How could I get a visiting friend on one of my trails without having to swap out my clipless pedals to platforms and not incur rental costs when I had extra bikes that they could use. They also offered an added benefit when installed that allowed me to hit the trail without much prep or go into town and not have to walk around in my cycling shoes. They are die cast molded pedal platforms that require your own cleats to install. The instructions are included in the box and are easy to follow. If you are like me you can’t live without the Fly Pedals II, clicking on this link will take you to their product page.
If you would like to visit the Fly Pedals home page, you can access it here. If you are thirsty for more and want to see their product video which is super cool, click here.
Brian Koehn
Breckenridge, Colorado
