A classic picture, from our Classic Ride feature, mounted and ready to be framed. Sometimes watercolours bend to your will and every splash satisfyingly runs, just enough, into its neighbour…
For years, SRAM had a clipless-pedal-shaped hole in its complete groupset picture, compared to rivals Shimano. With almost* universal acceptance of Shimano’s SPD platform for clipped-in riding, it seemed unlikely that SRAM would be able to come up with a pedal system as simple and reliable as Shimano unless SRAM did something like buy Time Pedals. And today, SRAM has announced that it has just inked a deal to buy Time Pedals.
Time Pedals was one of the very early road clip-in pedal innovators in 1987 and then the Time ATAC pedal arrived in 1993, winning the hearts of many mountain bikers. With its near-indestructable construction, positive disengagement and comfortable float, the Time ATAC found many fans among XC racers, ‘cross riders and riders with wonky knees who appreciated the less-restrictive feel the pedals gave them. Time had previously collaborated with companies like Mavic for a while, but here, SRAM has just bought the whole Time Pedals company, Victor Kiam style (was his middle name really ‘Kermit’?!) from owners Rossignol – while the other portion of Time, which makes well-regarded road bikes, is continuing with a different buyer.
SRAM’s purchase of Time Pedals means that, with its other companies, like RockShox, Truvativ, Zipp and others, that it has near enough a complete bike’s worth of components to offer to customers, save perhaps tyres. (And conspiciously, an e-bike motor company too). We look forward to seeing what SRAM brings to the Time name, with SRAM’s global scale and product design reputation.
Things’ll start changing over mid-2021, but we probably won’t see anything beyond rebadged Time products for a year or so. Stay tuned. In the meantime, visit Time here, SRAM here, or our recent Time Pedal review here.
*Yeah – OK, Crank Bros fans and, oh, Time…
Premier Partner Spotlight
Singletrack Merch
Comments (6)
Comments Closed
I heard SRAM delayed negotiations… just buying time.
can’t wait for the sram ‘enhancements’
@Charlie Hobbs been drinking by any chance 🙂
Wonderful pedals, brought my atac ones 20 years ago & still going strong. Always work and great float. The one bit of old kit on my modern bike.
@jordan … oddly I was not drinking. I leave editorial things to the editorial people who can spell and clever stuff like that. But… to miss that pun?
I love my time pedals, use both the MTB and road versions. The cleat bars with the springy bit on the first pair I ever had are looking a bit thin and bendy now…
Only time I really use SPD is on the spin bikes at the gym, but for some reason, I’ve not done that for a looonnnggg time…