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I found pedals are having much bigger impact on pedal strikes - latest super wide flats, vs say trad little m520. Only time been an issue on my Birds has been when on flats, don't recall any strikes when running spds.
Probably noticed more as only started to use flats when I got my first Bird, had been a solid SPD user since they came out.
“ I think the high bb improving handling thing is based to be analogous to a pendulum, like picturing balancing a broom on your fingertip”
That’s the analogy I’ve heard but having tried to look at it lots of different ways with my physics brain it still doesn’t stack up. If you want a better analogy that actually works, make some stilts with the foot pegs at different heights. You’ll quickly come to realise that the higher your feet are off the ground, the harder it is to balance on the stilts.
The only vaguely valid argument claiming high BB’s increase stability is the rather backwards approach that a less stable bike is more responsive to rider input and therefore easier to stabilise if it’s in an unstable state. Similar to the argument that less slack bikes handle better because they’re more responsive.
Thankfully the MTB world has realised that more stable is often better so we’re now riding things shaped more like motocross bikes and less like road bikes.
The bb height is more affected by sag than any other aspect of bike geometry
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…pedals are having much bigger impact on pedal strikes – latest super wide flats, vs say trad little m520
There’s the answer 👆
I have a Cotic Jeht & an Orange Stage Evo. It’s have the same length cranks & very similar size flat pedals etc. The Jeht has a BB drop of 27mm whereas the Stage evo is quoted as 50mm. Static BB height on the Cotic is about 34.5cm whereas the Orange is 32cm
I have no more pedal strikes with the Orange than the Cotic.
The reason I think sag & pedals are the main reason is because of the sheer number of riders I see with waaaaaay too soft rear suspension (especially e-bikes). I reckon most of the rider is see must be running in excess of 50% sag. It’s amazing; I think these people must buy their bike & then don’t touch it from the moment they’ve walked out the shop door.
I rode SPDs for years & returned to flats about 10 years ago. What I noticed is that flats had not only become much thinner, the platform size felt like it had virtually doubled (I used to ride Shimano DX bmx pedals & DMR v10 & now have Hope & Burgtec flats). Funnily enough, the only time I was conscious of pedals strikes was when I returned to flats.
Now I’m not saying that this is the case with absolutely everyone, but my personal experience echoes those above who feel it isn’t BB height that cause pedal strike.