Originally Posted by
tomato coupe
Shimano SPD pedals are also really easy to engage and they can be purchased new for under $35. As a bonus, they're really easy to walk in when they're used with mountain biking shoes.Your overhead may be low, but Shimano's volume is enormous. Can you reduce your present production cost by a factor of 50? That's what you'd likely have to do to compete with Shimano on price.
If the guide washer can't be removed using ordinary tools, it's effectively a permanent part of the pedal. Consumers are not going to seek out a machine shop to have their pedals modified.
As far as competing with MB pedals I don't think that it is the road we are trying to go down. Our pricing will be highly competitive.
With regards to the lead washer, the person below had mentioned it. We could offer it without the lead if people wanted it very easily. It could even be a direct order from us.
Originally Posted by
em_525
Good deal. I'd have to say given the above, I may now be interested. Thank you for your time today.
I appreciate you actually understanding the pedal system and it truly does work just as well as I have it in the videos. Thanks
Originally Posted by
joejack951
I am a little confused about the cleat wear issue. One reviewer expressed concern about wear when using prototype aluminum cleats and you suggested that a steel cleat was in the works to combat this issue (paraphrasing here). Now you seem to be going the opposite direction with an injection molded plastic cleat. Honestly, the latter seems like a terrible idea given the design of the cleat but perhaps you have done testing that proves it is durable enough. Here’s hoping you have or at least will before investing in injection molding tooling.
As a fellow product designer, prototyper, and small volume manufacturer, if you need help sourcing parts or tooling at any level, let me know. I live for this stuff and am lucky enough to also make my living doing it.
As far as the cleats go, our process has been going on for a long time. When gear junkie mentioned the wear it was only superficial scratches and had no damage whatsoever. The reason that we have gone to the glass filled nylon is we can make the product for extremely less money and the durability is able to be proven by myself as I had walked 2 miles consecutively on rough concrete sidewalks. When I did that test I was walking in full stride which would be the absolute worst on a nylon cleat. If you were picking your feet up and down, keeping your foot flat, I think that the pedal could last 3 times that long.
Thank you for the offer for the help, fortunately my partner is a machinist/mold maker. This is no get rich scheme like I had said, it is just a couple of old bucks having some fun. If you could sell ten or 20 sets a week or month across the entire US we would probably be satisfied. Thanks again for the offer of assistance.