Oer! Quick Release Pedals - Promend PD R67Q Quick Release Pedal Review
If you purchase these pedals via this link I may receive a small commission
If you’ve read my Altravesur bikepacking blogs or seen the videos, you’ll know that on occasion I struggled to push or pull my fully loaded bike up and down some steep banks or mountain road washouts. 'How hard can it be' I hear you ask, after all, the bike is rolling on wheels! Well, I can tell you it is more difficult than it sounds! Physics has a lot to do with it, along with a bit of pain! When you factor in the weight of the bike and luggage, the lack of grip of your feet on the rocky ground, the steepness of the incline, the tendency of the rear end of the bike to want to overtake the front by flipping over!, all made that much worse by the fact that you can only push from a very upright position as you need to stand between the pedals and the handlebars, which means the effort you can put into pushing is very limited, makes it is a tricky old game indeed!
Of course, there’s always the option of stripping the luggage off the bike and taking it a piece at a time, in the first week of my tour, that’s just what I did, as I wasn’t fit enough to haul it. It’s effective, but time consuming. On one occasion, later in the ride, I’d have had to do just that if it wasn’t for the kindness of a hiker that happened upon me whilst I was slipping and sliding, trying to get down a steep washout. Still, with her pushing from behind and me trying to steer and support the bike, with the pedals bashing my calves or shins, depending if I stood in front or or behind the pedals, made it all very difficult.
On another occasion I had fallen down an embankment, I needed to haul the bike back up it, by dragging it, with the pedals digging into the ground, or getting caught in the brambles and foliage, it was again, very difficult.
Yes, I could unpack my tools and unscrew the pedals, but really in these situations it isn’t something I want to be doing, for the reasons that it’s fiddly, there’s nowhere to lean the bike quite often, it could be raining and windy and so on. So I decided that at some point in the future, I would investigate quick release (QR) pedals. I spent some time researching what was available, MKS seem the most popular brand, I couldn’t afford them so forgot all about the project.
Wind forward two years, I finally got around to ordering some, not the MKS brand but a cheaper one, a much cheaper one! I know it’s foolish to buy cheap, especially a safety critical item like pedals, but at around $45, Australian dollars that is, around £25, I thought I’d order them and see what they look like. If they looked of poor quality, then it was a wasted 45 bucks, but luckily, they looked reasonably engineered, enough so to carry out some measured testing, with intermittent checks.
The ones I bought are the Promend make, type PD-R67Q, which are mountain bike style pedals. I bought them on eBay, from a company called cxm_sports. I can recommend this seller, they seem like an honest and trustworthy company. The pedals arrived reasonably quickly, in around ten days.
Fitting them is simply a matter of taking off your old pedals and screwing in the QR coupling in their place, tightening them with the spanner that comes in the kit. It’s important to refit the washer if your bike pedals use a washer, without it, the QR coupling doesn’t push back enough to enable the pedal to slot in. To fit the pedal to the QR coupler, you push back on the spring loaded QR coupling outer shell then slot the pedal into the QR coupling, letting go of the outer part of the QR coupling locks the pedal in place, giving the pedal a push and the coupler a pull, does no harm, just to check they have seated correctly. A plastic safety keep plate is supplied with the kit, this is slipped behind the outer part of the QR coupling, preventing it accidentally being pulled back whilst riding.
The coupler means the 'shank' of the pedal is around 15mm longer than the standard pedals which means the pedal would stick out further by this amount, but the platform of these pedals are 15mm narrower than my old pedals, so they measure just around the same from outer pedal to outer pedal.
I’ve fitted them to Stumpy, my trail bike, so I can give them some fast and gnarly rides down the local downhill trails. Which thus far, I’ve done once. I’ve also ridden around the block a few times too. If all goes okay, I’ll get another pair for my bikepacking steed as well. As yet, I’ve had no problems with them.
You can see my YouTube here, of the fitting and riding with the QR pedals
At some point, if there’s someone local and cheap enough, I’d like to get them crack checked, so I’ll keep you posted on that!
One thing that I’ve been doing is to wipe both the pedal and coupler down each time I remove them, I’m sure grit and dirt getting into the coupler could cause some problems down the line.
I’ve found that I get quite negative comments when I discuss these on social media, mostly with people 'telling' me they can't see why I'd want such a thing. For me, this isn’t up for discussion, they suit my need perfectly.
A big bonus to being able to remove them easily, is the ease of which I can put my bike in the back of the car. It slides in easily, and doesn’t rock around at all, this alone will be the reason I’ll leave them on my trail bike!
These are the reasons I think they are a good idea:
Pushing up and down banks without bashing your legs on sharp pedals
Ease of transporting in a car
Ease of taking on public transport
Theft deterrent
Ease of quickly packing for flying
*update* When riding last Sunday, I also discovered a pedal makes a fantastic weapon!!
If you can think of any other reasons, please leave a comment below!
So let’s see how they go. I pray they don’t let me down, it won’t be pretty if they do!
***** DISCLAIMER ****** I don't know if these pedals are suitable for heavy work such as mountain biking, jumps and drops etc. I will continue to test them and will report back any problems. If you choose to fit these pedals, it is at your own risk, check with the manufacturer if you are unsure they are suitable for your riding. I've been wanting some quick release pedals for some time, and I don't mean clipless pedals, I mean pedals that you can remove from the bike in seconds. Obviously with more moving parts there is going to be a maintenance overhead, but the benefit of being able to load the bike in the car easier and not bash my shins on the pedals, I think will be worth it. What I'm not sure about is how safe they are, a pedal falling off is going to end in injury for sure. So I'll test them for some time, this is my first ride with them, I'll report back if I have any problems.!
If you purchase these pedals via this link I may receive a small commission
***UPDATE***
Over a year later and nothing untoward to report! I have the pedals on all my bikes now, including my downhill bike. One problem is I lock the car up and have forgotten to put my pedals on!!! Remember I only weigh 60Kg also note the platform is around 15mm narrower than a 'normal' pedal. You can see a video of my update here