Cycling UK Forum

I was thinking about getting myself some new pedals for the mountain bike. I like the look of the V12 pedals but I see the service kits are about £24 from Tredz and CRC no longer do them. I found these people but are they too good to be true?

https://www.onlinebearings.co.uk/DMR-V1 ... e-Kit.html

Anyone used bearings or kits from them?




I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my iPad using hovercraft full of eels.

The bearings in each pedal comprise of

- a seal
- a plain bushing (inboard bearing)
- a tiny cartridge bearing (outboard bearing)

All these parts are industrial standard parts that are mass-produced and they ought to cost about a fiver (total) for two of each. I've not used the vendors in question but the prices are about right, unlike cycle retailers where someone is taking the wee-wee price-wise.

BTW SJS have replacement steel V12 pedal spindles for about £5 each.

But having said this.... the cartridge bearing (which has a lowish static load rating IIRC) probably isn't really strong enough (they have doubled up on similar bearings in other pedal designs) and the bushings are inherently rather draggy. I researched the friction coefficients of such bushing type bearings and they vary with the type of bushing (and presumably the properties of the spindle against which they bear, lubrication, load etc) but the bottom line is that these bushings are likely to be about x10 to x100 more draggy than a half-decent ball-bearing.

About 1.5% of your total effort could disappear in such pedal bearings before it gets to anywhere else.

My advice; the DMR V8 is a better pedal in many respects, and even V8 copies (such as wellgo LU-987-U) actually work very well despite not having a grease port and lacking in proper seals etc. Such pedals vary in the number of replaceable pins they have which may or many not be important to you. But grease and adjust them from time to time and they just work better and better and the pedals may last for donkey's years. [ IIRC the DMR V8 pedal is made by wellgo anyway, as are various crank bros pedals etc.]

The cheap pedals have one thing going for them, which is that should you trash them (a common fate with pedals) there are no tears in your future, just more cheap pedals. FWIW wellgo LU-987-U were on sale with some vendors for about a fiver a pair a few months ago.

cheers