Pedals and crank arms for less pedal strikes!

[Santa]

What pedals are you all riding? My wife is getting an incredible amount of pedal strikes on her Decoy, even in high BB position and with proper suspension setup too. She’s riding the Raceface Atlas pedals that YT sells at a discount. I find those to be quite wide and thick.

Also, would it be a good idea to change the crank ams for shorter ones to solve this problem?

Hers is a “small” size 2020 Decoy Comp model (mullet) with 170mm fork.

 

[Husky430]

These are nice thin pedals and have been great for me (Entity PP15 Sealed Bearing Alloy Flat Pedals) on sale here in OZ at the moment for only $30. I think with time you do learn to assess the terrain better as well and that will also help with those pedal strikes.

 

[Zero]

Get shorter cranks 155mm won't notice any difference other than less striks.

Some place in Sutton Coldfield sells them about 75 quid. Dad just got em for his decoy

 

[Murphius]

Honest feedback, pedal strikes are not something you can buy your way out of. It’ll come with experience in keeping pedals level, ratcheting, etc.

 

[HORSPWR]

Honest feedback, pedal strikes are not something you can buy your way out of. It’ll come with experience in keeping pedals level, ratcheting, etc.

Yes you can, 15mm can make a world of difference to a lot of people!

 

[leftside]

Miranda in Portugal were out of stock recently, but they now have the cranks specific for the E8000 motor in stock. I ordered two yesterday. I don't hit the pedals too often (especially since 1) I got more used to the bike and 2) I raised the bike to high), but I'd still like to eliminate the occasional strike I get.

 

[Zero]

Honest feedback, pedal strikes are not something you can buy your way out of. It’ll come with experience in keeping pedals level, ratcheting, etc.

yes u can lol

 

[R120]

Shorter cranks will help, but really it is all about getting used to the bike and improving technique, but the more you ride the more you will adjust and learn to read the terrain.

 

[Zero]

Shorter cranks will help, but really it is all about getting used to the bike and improving technique, but the more you ride the more you will adjust and learn to read the terrain.

Well I can tell you that something is wrong with the kinematics of this bike.

It could be a number of things but this bikes bb height does not portray the expected actual bb height when on the bike.

This could be because of the 2.8 squishy rear tyre. But I also found that it seems far to keen to use its first 50% of travel. If this was an analogue bike it would be slated for its mushy pedaling performance but the motor does away with most of those issues. But the issue shows up in pedal strikes instead.

We tried plenty of suspension settings all in high mode and you can't seem to get the issue to go away and people have reported same issue with all 3 rear shocks that you can get.

I don't have same issue on my kenevo which I think is supposed to be 2mm lower but I'd have to check and that's with a coil with no compression adjustment. I think only 1 pedal strike on the new bike in 3 big rides.

The same issue shows up in how you can blow through the travel of the shock on fairly average drops. Which is 165mm but feels bouncy and any extra pressure seems to just ruins the small bump compliance. We have tried tokens too and this was with 2 different bikes on riders of 75kg and 100kg. We spoke to two different tuners with totally different opinions. One said nothing you can do the other said the shocks have a medium tune which might require are more stiff tune in the shims.

Its pretty bad because even on 155mm cranks the old man has bashed the cranks on first ride but its less of an issue now. I'm not sure if this is a feature or a flaw of this bike

 

[d3ftone]

These are nice thin pedals and have been great for me (Entity PP15 Sealed Bearing Alloy Flat Pedals) on sale here in OZ at the moment for only $30. I think with time you do learn to assess the terrain better as well and that will also help with those pedal strikes. View attachment 34139

Do you know what size the pin threads are? M4? M3?

 

[Pascal Funk]

Super the Entity ... 12 pins
Like my Chinese for 15 €

 

[Husky430]

Pretty sure the pins just push in, haven't lost any in nearly 12 months living with the pedals now if that's any help. They are the thinnest pedals I've come across, was going to go down the short crank arm track too, but found I had less pedal strikes the more I rode the bike. Still get the occasional one but that is more down to me not reading the terrain properly.

 

[speedkills]

Honest feedback, pedal strikes are not something you can buy your way out of. It’ll come with experience in keeping pedals level, ratcheting, etc.

Super easy to buy your way out of. Shorter cranks work. If your bike has a flip chip type linkage, flip it to the high position, that totally works. If you can easily lengthen your shock stroke, that works too. I have a Levo, smacked everything everywhere at first, flipped the chip and I have over 10x less pedal strikes now.

 

[speedkills]

That said, if you take the easy way of bike adjustment out of pedal strikes, half of us will instantly respect you less for not earning your pedal turns!

 

[Nobblynik]

I would agree that its all about technique, but learning when to stop peddling or stand on the peddles will come in time if you give it time, I hated the the 165mm cranks on the Decoy at first as have always ridden 175mm, I have to have the seat post higher than I'd like with the Decoy but soon got used it. Its a trade off, mines in the low setting and I ride DH, XC with big ruts and don't have any issues now.

 

[Gemini2k]

It’s important to remember this is a purpose built downhill machine. It’s not some long travel trail bike. If you bought it to do a lot of single track/technical/rocky climbing then you bought the wrong bike to be honest. It’s really meant for expert level DH riders to pedal up fireroads or something and then descend steep double black trails ?‍.

 

[leftside]

It’s important to remember this is a purpose built downhill machine. It’s not some long travel trail bike. If you bought it to do a lot of single track/technical/rocky climbing then you bought the wrong bike to be honest. It’s really meant for expert level DH riders to pedal up fireroads or something and then descend steep double black trails ?‍.

Damn. A bike only for expert level DH riders who ride steep double black trails. Best send mine back then as there aren't too many double black diamond's I'd ride here in BC ?‍

 

[Sapientiea]

It’s important to remember this is a purpose built downhill machine. It’s not some long travel trail bike. If you bought it to do a lot of single track/technical/rocky climbing then you bought the wrong bike to be honest. It’s really meant for expert level DH riders to pedal up fireroads or something and then descend steep double black trails ?‍.

What? Decoy rides fine where ever you take it. Bombs downhill, technical trails are perfectly fine to ride too. I like it a lot. Do not do DH at all since i find it rather boring compared to my lover for exploring mountain trails and such

 

[Gemini2k]

What? Decoy rides fine where ever you take it. Bombs downhill, technical trails are perfectly fine to ride too. I like it a lot. Do not do DH at all since i find it rather boring compared to my lover for exploring mountain trails and such

I'm not saying it can't do it. I've done some technical climbing on my Decoy, it's fine (but of course the low BB isn't optimal). I'm just saying that's not what it was designed for. Sure you can take a 100mm travel bike and bomb downhill if you want to, but it's not the right tool for the job. If you bought the decoy with the main goal of going on lots of technical climbing trails...you made the wrong decision. Which is evidenced by the countless posts of people here complaining about pedal strikes. ?‍. Something more XC/trail focused like a Levo would've been better.

 

[Santa]

SOLVED - We just went with smaller (i.e. more narrow) pedals. Wife runs clipless so she put on the Shimano XT trail pedals. She also runs High BB. I run platforms, and I put on some Xpedo Spry and they work OK even on Low BB.

For those who say that these are not bikes meant for trail style riding - I know! But we still need to climb up technical trails here to get to our downhill runs, and those pedal strikes really mess you up.