Platform for the AM crowd

Straitline AMP pedal details:

The rotating resistance of our pedals is negligible. Yes, you can feel it in your hand because you have no leverage to spin it. When you are standing on it it is a whole different story because your weight will overcome that resistance. Actually, the rotating resistance is also lower when the bushings are loaded. Usually when a client tells us that their pedals are not turning freely we open them up to find that they have not been cleaned properly, or that there is copious quantities of grease, which we do not recommend. They only require a small amount of grease to eliminate any squeaking.

Actually, Igus bushings have been successfully used in many bike applications and hundreds of thousands of applications outside of the biking world. With bushings you need a fair amount of clearance, making them less appropriate for things like wheel bearings and headsets where play would equate to poor handling. Pedals, however, are a different story. The bushings are basically like the cartilage in your knee, they distribute the load and lubricate the axle, allowing it to spin freely.

Exactly, the AMP was designed with weight savings and overall height in mind, and the shape is a result of that thinking. The shape is also very conscious of ground clearance and we have removed every possible bit of metal that does not need to be there to support your feet. The large end chamfers are a result of examining our other pedals after riding to see where they have been clipping objects.

This whole thin pedal thing is starting to get a little carried away. It is starting to remind me of the 3'' tire craze. We agree that a thin pedal is good to a point, but our axles are 12mm tapered to 10mm at the outboard end, so going any thinner is really not an option for us. The AMP is almost 1/4'' overall thinner than our Defacto (original platform) pedals, but that is as thin as we are going. A rider will notice going from an inch and a half thick pedal, to a 3/4'' thick pedal, but beyond that it becomes much less noticeable. Perception is another story! The AMP is easily strong enough for DH. Strength wise it is identical to the original, but clearance and weight are much better.

Our Defacto pedals were our first pedal and we decided at that point to offer as many pin placement options as possible. However, over the last five years we have played with more pin placements than you could ever imagine. We removed the pins over the axle bore and texturized that surface of the pedal body. Also, the pin placement was optimized by evaluating where your shoe actually contacts the pedal. Lowering the number of pins also increases the amount of force on the remaining pins, and in the end provides better grip. The hexagonal pins provide the best traction. We tested many different designs in the early days of the Defacto pedals, and by far the Hexagrip pins were the best all around. As far as cost goes, we produce hundreds of thousands of these at a time and it really doesn't impact the overall price.

Our Neverfail double retention system features two circlips (poodle clips). The first is the workhorse, the second is in place as a safety measure and retains a clip cover that makes clip failure virtually impossible. Neverfail has been copied by a number of competitors because it is vastly superior to using a lock nut, or other circlip designs. Serviceability is very important to us, and our pedals show that as they are ridiculously easy to take apart and put back together.

The guys from Straitline were cruising the halls of Interbike with a stunning new pedal that has been designed with trail and all-mountain use in mind, dubbed the AMP (). Their Defacto pedal uses a burly design that is well suited to handling any abuse that you can throw at it, but they realized that many riders are looking for a slimmer and lighter pedal, one that can still take a beating, but that comes in at a reasonable weight.The 330 gram AMP's use a completely redesigned platform that has been pared down to what Straitline claims is only what is needed, despite them being confident that they'll hold up just fine when used on a downhill bike. You won't find any micro sized sealed bearings in the AMPs, but rather a lighter Igus bushing system that Straitline says better suits the demands of a pedal. Fourteen custom-made hexagonal pins on each pedal help to keep your feet in place.• New design intended for trail and all-mountain use• Strong enough to use on a DH bike• Uses 7 hexagonal pins per side, 14 per pedal• 12mm axles that taper to 10mm at outboard end• Bodies rotate on Igus bushings• Weight: 324 grams (), 272 grams (• MSRP: $185 USD (), $288 USD (Those familiar with Straitline's original pedal will know that they don't spin on sealed bearings, or even a bearing and bushing combination that is commonly used within other pedals, but employ a full bushing setup. Straitline maintains that this design is far more appropriate for use within a pedal, proving to be much more resilient than the tiny sealed bearings that are used by a lot of the competition. While that may be true, it is no secret that the use of Igus polymer bushings doesn't exactly lead to pedals that turn freely in your hands, which is why some may question Strailine's decision to use the same internal design on their new AMP, a platform pedal intended to be used on all-mountain and trail bikes. Straitline's engineer, Dennis Paulson, had this to say about the choice of a full bushing setup instead of bearings within AMP:So, the question that needs answering is what is so special about the Igus Iglide bushings that Straitline uses within the AMP pedal, and if they are so great, why aren't they used elsewhere on the bike as well?The AMP's minimalistic shape is pared down more than the original pedal, obviously with the goal of losing weight without sacrificing strength.Thin pedals seem to be all the rage these days, with designers going to extreme lengths to shave even an extra millimeter from the pedal's height, but the trade offs must not be worth it at some point. Do you think some designs have gone too far? Can strength begin to be sacrificed?You also manufacturer your own hexagonal pedal pins, of which the AMP uses just seven pins per side compared to the original pedal's fourteen. Why go this route?Why does the AMP use a circlip to hold the body on instead of a threaded nut like found on most other designs? Are they easy to service?We've left the show with our own set of AMP pedals and will be putting them through the ringer during our notoriously wet Fall riding season. Stay tuned for a long-term review where we'll discover how the pedal's Igus bushing internals and slim body holdup over the long haul.Visit the Straitline website to see their entire lineup.