Rat Traps

[Nearholmer]

I’m sure I recall metal toe clips with leather straps being called “rat traps”, yet the term is applied to metal cage pedals with serrated edges, no toeclips.

Were we using the term wrongly to mean toeclips? Or, has the meaning changed? Or, is one GB and the other US?

Confused.

[Barrowman]

I think you are right that it's the serrated pedal/ toe clip/ leather strap combo that earns the 'Rat Trap' Synonym.
Otherwise it's just a pedal, where's the 'trap' ?

[Nearholmer]

Collins Dictionary seems to think that the toeclips are necessary in order for the term to apply:

“a type of bicycle pedal having serrated steel foot pads and a toe clip”

If that’s the case though, how come the term now applies to the same sort of pedal, but without toeclips?

Other thoughts?

[wirral_cyclist]

Rat trap (with/without clip) is a reference to the potential for blood loss from the pedal surface, other pedals don't have any features that evoke an instant image the same. I think bear trap when I see rat trap written.

[slowster]

When similar pedals but with much larger cages were introduced for MTB use, they were called 'bear traps' by some manufacturers, and I think were typically used without toe clips (and the curved cage on some was not designed to accept a toe clip). That might have resulted in the term 'rat trap' similarly being used to refer just to the pedal type.

[Mike Sales]

I’m sure I recall metal toe clips with leather straps being called “rat traps”, yet the term is applied to metal cage pedals with serrated edges, no toeclips.

Were we using the term wrongly to mean toeclips? Or, has the meaning changed? Or, is one GB and the other US?

Confused.

I always understood "rat traps" to refer to this sort of pedal, with or without toe clips and straps.

When I google "rat trap pedal pics" only one of the pics has toe clips and straps. Nearly all are of this pattern. The MTB pedals were yet to be invented.

My understanding is gathered purely from usage.
These are quill pedals.

quill pedal.jpg (15.15 KiB) Viewed 1993 times

[thirdcrank]

I've a clear childhood memory of when I first heard the expression.

In Roundhay Park, Leeds, there's an open air arena with a banked grass cycle track. The arena - which probably has a name I've forgotten - has been the setting for all sorts of public events. I remember going to some sort of event with my mother in the late 1940s when I would have been perhaps five or six. The programme included grass track racing. I remember one rider accidentally pulling his foot out and failing to finish the race with one leg stuck out and his pedals still going round. I clearly remember my mother using the expression "rat-trap pedals." I was a died-in-the-wool toeclips rider till I got SPD in the late 1990s. I don't remember ever hearing the expression rat-trap pedals from experienced riders

[Nearholmer]

I always understood "rat traps" to refer to this sort of pedal, with or without toe clips and straps

That’s certainly modern usage; the thing that intrigues me is the fact that we called the toeclips rat traps c50 years ago. Were we wrong then, or has useage changed?

[Mike Sales]

I always understood "rat traps" to refer to this sort of pedal, with or without toe clips and straps

That’s certainly modern usage; the thing that intrigues me is the fact that we called the toeclips rat traps c50 years ago. Were we wrong then, or has useage changed?

My memory of pedals goes back only forty years, but I think the usage I describe was current then.

[axel_knutt]

Collins Dictionary seems to think that the toeclips are necessary in order for the term to apply:

“a type of bicycle pedal having serrated steel foot pads and a toe clip”

If that’s the case though, how come the term now applies to the same sort of pedal, but without toeclips?

Other thoughts?

The OED says: "a bicycle pedal consisting of a frame holding two parallel metal plates with serrated or toothed edges, which provide grip" dating as far back as 1887.

AFAIK the name derives from the similarity in shape between the pedal cage and the jaws of an animal trap.

I have seen an argument that it comes from the French verb rattraper: to catch or overtake, but that sounds like a load of bunkum to me.

[thirdcrank]

https://www.leodis.net/viewimage/122083

That's an image of grass track racing in Roundhay Park from 2013. This explanatory note must have been written by a knowledgeable cycling historian

View shows the start-finish line of the grass velodrome at Roundhay Park during a cycle race. The grass velodrome was built as part of the sports arena at Roundhay Park in 1897, and, by the close of the nineteenth century, audiences numbered to up to ten thousand. Grass track bicycles are equipped with a single-speed transmission and no brakes. A ban on road racing in the 1930s and 1940s increased the popularity of grass racing, and time trials started in the park in secret at this time due to the road ban. The West Riding Track League was formed in 1947, and the sport remained popular up until the 1970s, when road racing rejuvenated. Recently grass racing has itself undergone a renaissance: as of 2017, there were over 200 riders registered in the League, with around 100 children racing weekly. Famous figures in cycling to have taken part in the League include Lizzie Armitstead, Josh Edmondson and Jonny Clay.

[CampagKid]

Campagnolo has a nicer name fort their track pedals with serrated edges: Con Denti. With teeth!

[CampagKid]

Like this!

[CampagKid]

Apparently, they are very, very rare.

[Nearholmer]

Otherwise it's just a pedal, where's the 'trap' ?

As is said above, they do look exactly like a small gin trap in the “set” position, most small traps being rectangular when open, with the trigger bar or plate in the position of a pedal spindle.

I’m coming round to the idea that the serrated-edge pedal is indeed the “rat trap”, and that somehow the toeclips got the same name by association. If rat trap, as in toeclip was in Leeds, in Sussex (where I come from) and in at least one dictionary, it must have been in quite widespread use.