The Thin Man 

Friends,

I received a late 80's touring bike that looks fairly stock yet one thing grabbed my attention. The standard, run-of-the-mill SR SP-100 pedals had some metal covers attached to each pedal.
I've seen SPD pedal covers so you can ride SPD pedals in flats but nothing like this. Have I been living under a rock?

They are of nice quality being thick and fit perfectly.

Are these homemade? Boutique made? Mass produced?

merziac

@The Thin Man

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say these were home fabbed out of sill plate material.

Looks from here like they were two different ones as well, unless I'm not seeing correctly, one has raised ribs while the other has recessed ribs from here.

The Thin Man 

Good points, merziac.

Clever materials/design!

merziac

A great idea to be sure and grip tape could be added as necessary.

oneclick 

I agree on the source; what you're seeing is not a reversed rib - look at the edge - but a wear pattern; that side is the foot the rider preferred to take out when stopped. The top corners of the ribs are worn, and with the different photo angle the larger shadow has fooled you.

merziac

Can you remove the other one so we can see it by itself?

merziac

Maybe, like I said "looks from here".

rumrunn6

interesting idea! last night I was trying various shoes w/ some toe clips to see which I wanted to use tonight. changing the grip of the pedals would have an effect. wonder if the owner/maker didn't have other pedals to choose from. lots of options these days

dddd

The holes very much look punched, not drilled.

So I will go out on my usual distant limb and say these were made by the pedal manufacturer.

Good luck finding them in a dusty old Japanese maker's catalog, unless it's a bicycle catalog showing these as an OEM option/addition.
What brand/model of bike?

unworthy1

True but even a home mechanic or "cottage fabricator" could have punches that would work easily on that aluminum. I have some myself, a set from (shudder) Harbor Freight as well as better stuff from Roper Whitney.
But finding exactly the right extrusion from part of a hardware store threshold would be the greater challenge for the DIY-er, I think.
Which wouldn't stop me from trying!

Bianchigirll 

I could be wrong but I think someone did market something like this. I believe the idea was the flat surface was easier on your foot if you weren’t wearing a dedicated cycling shoe.

The Thin Man 

Since I'm not feeling quite so silly for asking the question about these oddities, I am happy to provide some more shots.

I can't say for certain but these look punched rather than drilled.

If someone made these in their garage, I'd say they did an exceptional job.

merziac

Well I'm inclined to agree now with these pics but I would still contend that somebody was thinking about or looking at sill plates or thresholds when this idea popped into their head.

verktyg 

Those types of covers were a partial solution for folks with wide feet. BITD there were some plastic covers that did they same thing but they never looked very durable. Also some molded plastic and also cast aluminum pieces that snapped into the space around the pedal axle area.

These covers look like they were made from an aluminum threshold extrusion - aka sill plate. You might be able to find the right material at a place that sells doors. Also a company that manufactures sliding aluminum patio doors too. The down turned rear may have been rolled over.

I have wide feet - 10 1/2 EEE.

Riding Campy pedals back then even in riding shoes with cleats invariably ended up with a bad case of "hot foot" from the outboard tab on the quill digging into my sole. They were designed to keep skinny feet from sliding off the outside of the pedal.

The offending Torquemada torture device:



One quick fix was to grind or file off the point. Another was to use Pista pedals. The Campy style pedals were still too skinny!

A better solution for me was to switch to the cheap Lyotard 460D alloy rat trap pedals. They may have looked hokey on an all Campy Italian bike but walk a mile in my shoes!



Lyotard Berthet track pedals are flat but they're not very versatile in terms of foot placement.



Phil Wood made these uber expensive flat top "CHP Approved" pedals. We sold a few sets and I briefly tried them but they weren't comfortable for me.



For a few years back in the late 70's I rode these Cinelli M71 track pedals on long rural rides but they were a hassle to get in and out of in traffic.



Discovered these Sakae/SR Lowfat MTB pedals in the early 1990's. They solved my problems. I filed or ground the claw teeth flat for more comfortable road riding...



The sad problem with the SR Lowfat pedals is that they have very POOR quality cones and spindles that wear quickly.

verktyg "podiatrist"

T-Mar

I'm with BG on this one. I believe these may be a commercial product, as I recall these (or a very similar product) being advertised in one of the cycling magazines during the early to mid-1980s. However, it wouldn't surprise me if they were based on an existing extrusion and not a dedicated die.

Adapters like these also became fairly popular in the in the mid-1980s with triathletes and biathletes (later known as duathletes). For shorter, sprint events, the time lost in the shoe change could more than offset the time gains of proper, cleated, cycling shoes. They were more popular in duathlon, where there were two shoe changes. Later versions, designed specifcally for triathlon and duathlon, had heel retainers, allowing pull-back on the pedal, through the bottom of the stroke.

Pompiere

Sort of related. I got a pair of these with a lot of SPD pedals I bought at a swap meet. Google says they also made another version for Look cleats. I can see the utility of using regular shoes for commuting, then switching to cleats for racing on the weekend.


Winwood Instep pedal adaptors

noobinsf 

FWIW, my uncle is a retired machinist, and I can easily imagine him doing something of this quality in his garage workshop (had he ever been interested in cycling, which he wasn't). I'm not discounting your view; I'm reinforcing it. He was very good at his job and his adjacent hobbies.

zandoval 

OK... This goes on the list of things I am going to fabricate... Actually been putting it off for more than a few years but now I gotta do it... THANKS!

Gonna use an Aluminum Gutter for the material...

Of course mine are not going to be as pretty... Ha

The Thin Man 

Thanks to everyone for the informative replies. I appreciate the broadening of knowledge.

These pedal covers are pretty cool but I likely won’t use them. If you’ve read this far, chances are you are interested in them from a few different perspectives and one of those might be because you could use them. I’m happy to provide them free to someone who needs them or may want to fabricate their own and needs a guide. I do ask that you pay for the shipping though.

PM me offline and I’ll update this post when they go.

*Update*
They gone!

AZORCH

I chanced into a Raleigh International restoration project about ten years ago. The previous owner, a retired engineer, had cobbled together several modifications, one of which was this pedal flat.



His solution to the narrow bodied Campy pedal: fabricate an additional, wider body to wrap around the pedal; add a platform - and voila! A comfy (if rather heavy!) support for big feet and just about any type of shoe. When I first got the bike, I pedaled around the neighborhood to check it out. I was wearing flexible sneakers rather than stiff-soled cycling shoes and was pleasantly surprised at how reassuring the pedal was. It didn't occur to me at the time that the config was as heavily modified as it is - I only noticed the addition of the the platform.

oneclick 

When I was young(er) I made a set of converters for the quill pedals on a bike; I used rubber-soled shoes and they would get cut in half by the rear of the cage. I got some flat aluminium and bent it in a vice and drilled holes (extra ones in the top), was a BIG improvement.

A bit of net searching brought up a thing called a Handitread; it's a strip of~2mm aluminium bent into an L and has some dimples and tabs cut-and-pressed. I got a 4-foot strip and made these:




The fronts need some clearance:



I liked the curve on the back of the OP's examples, gave these a few taps with a mallet, but it's not quite long enough to be much of a curve:



There is quite a bit of the 4-foot bit left, so if anyone wants a set see my ad in the sales sub-forum.