mickle
innit
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We work with BLESMA (British Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association) every year, running an 'Introduction to Cycling' weekend for their members and demo days of our disability bikes.
The difficulty for a lot of my customers (with a whole spectrum of different disabilities) is in balancing two occasionally conflicting things: The ability to keep one's foot on a pedal vs the ability to get one's foot off a pedal.
A BLESMA member, a below the knee amputee in his 70s, is a high mileage cyclist, regularly riding double century weekends on a high end road bike. When he came on our Introduction to Cycling weekend - to give some support as an experienced rider to the newbies - he fell off three times. The pedals and shoe combination (cycling shoes with toe clips and straps) was the best that he'd found. They kept his foot securely on the pedal but a bit too securely for him to be able to get his foot down faster than him hitting the ground. He can't use a regular clip-in pedal, either SPD pattern or LOOK, because he doesn't have the feel in his foot to know where the engagement point is. Also, if he did eventually manage to clip in he struggled to release fast enough. He said that he probably fell over two or more times every single ride. It was less than ideal, but a price that he was prepared to pay to continue riding his bike. So I set about finding a solution for him. I remembered that Mavic had produced a magnetic pedal system years ago. It had failed, I suspect, because the system required Mavic's own dedicated shoe.
And then I googled upon the MAGLock magnetic pedal:
So I managed to secure the first set of these pedals in the UK, a pre-production set directly from the US manufacturer. They are marketed to mountain bikers as the 'best of both worlds' between flatties and clip-ins. They have around 30lbs of attraction. Are a designed to be used with a SPD compatible 'two bolt' mountain biking, touring or leisure shoe. Of course the enormous advantage of a strongly magnetic pedal is that it physically attracts the steel cleat. Engagement is super easy. Disengagement is a matter of pulling ones foot sideways. You can reduce the amount of attracation by removing one or more individual magnets.
l sent off the demo pair to him with the promise that if he liked them he could send them back and I'd order him a production pair. Anyway, he refused to send them back!
MAGLock hadn't considered that these might turn out to be useful for folks with prosthetic legs - so they were really chuffed to hear about the success we'd had with our old soldier.
I sell these in the UK, but I'm not imagining that you lot will be buying them - I'm posting this because I thought it might be of interest, But ...if anyone is interested in trying them we have a DEMO set available to try. They're bloody expensive at the moment (£168!) but this will drop with the launch of their new lighter, plastic version that's on Kickstarter right now.
The difficulty for a lot of my customers (with a whole spectrum of different disabilities) is in balancing two occasionally conflicting things: The ability to keep one's foot on a pedal vs the ability to get one's foot off a pedal.
A BLESMA member, a below the knee amputee in his 70s, is a high mileage cyclist, regularly riding double century weekends on a high end road bike. When he came on our Introduction to Cycling weekend - to give some support as an experienced rider to the newbies - he fell off three times. The pedals and shoe combination (cycling shoes with toe clips and straps) was the best that he'd found. They kept his foot securely on the pedal but a bit too securely for him to be able to get his foot down faster than him hitting the ground. He can't use a regular clip-in pedal, either SPD pattern or LOOK, because he doesn't have the feel in his foot to know where the engagement point is. Also, if he did eventually manage to clip in he struggled to release fast enough. He said that he probably fell over two or more times every single ride. It was less than ideal, but a price that he was prepared to pay to continue riding his bike. So I set about finding a solution for him. I remembered that Mavic had produced a magnetic pedal system years ago. It had failed, I suspect, because the system required Mavic's own dedicated shoe.
And then I googled upon the MAGLock magnetic pedal:
So I managed to secure the first set of these pedals in the UK, a pre-production set directly from the US manufacturer. They are marketed to mountain bikers as the 'best of both worlds' between flatties and clip-ins. They have around 30lbs of attraction. Are a designed to be used with a SPD compatible 'two bolt' mountain biking, touring or leisure shoe. Of course the enormous advantage of a strongly magnetic pedal is that it physically attracts the steel cleat. Engagement is super easy. Disengagement is a matter of pulling ones foot sideways. You can reduce the amount of attracation by removing one or more individual magnets.
l sent off the demo pair to him with the promise that if he liked them he could send them back and I'd order him a production pair. Anyway, he refused to send them back!
MAGLock hadn't considered that these might turn out to be useful for folks with prosthetic legs - so they were really chuffed to hear about the success we'd had with our old soldier.
I sell these in the UK, but I'm not imagining that you lot will be buying them - I'm posting this because I thought it might be of interest, But ...if anyone is interested in trying them we have a DEMO set available to try. They're bloody expensive at the moment (£168!) but this will drop with the launch of their new lighter, plastic version that's on Kickstarter right now.
