I saw this on a pro ‘cross bike feature on bikeradar a while back – the rider (can’t remember who) had got some of the Shimano trail pedals with, and cut/hacked/ground off the cage.

From the looks of things, the trail pedals have a bit more of the flat section that the cleat sits on, so should provide some more support under power, even without the cage. And if the cage is gone they should be a similar weight to the ‘race’ versions?
Also, you can get hold of the XTR trails for less than the race ones at the moment.

Good idea or should I not bother?

Given how the XTR trails tend to fall apart, I’d be buying XT

That would be my concern, you certainly say goodbye to any warranty by doing that, was an interesting mod though, I remember it too. Would’ve said it was a WC XC racer rather than ‘cross.

Just buy the race pedal and save alot of bodging

Your missing the point of the mod there chris.

The xt trail/race are different beasts to the xtr so doesn’t look like the mod would work the same at that level.

I have some old xtr pedals and they have been bulletproof for years, but clicked into the new style on some one elses bike, and they just feel cheaper and tinier than the old ones.

I like the idea of the extra flat sections, bit I don’t know how noticeable it would be in use. If they bring back some of the old reliability I would go for it, but with the current design I would give it a miss.

That was my concern really, I’ve seen quite a few XTR pedals come off the spindles, and it doesn’t look fun.
But XTs are so.heavy! But I suppose XTR isn’t really any lighter.

With that in mind, anyone tried Ritchey pedals?

Wasn’t there also a ST article on this a while back (maybe the same chap?)?

Wasn’t there also a ST article on this a while back (maybe the same chap?)?

yep, and no, iirc

Why bother though, to save ~20g?

Looking at the pedals there’s only at most an extra 2mm width on the trail pedals compared to the race ones.
I really cant see the point, the sole of the shoe should be stiff enough to manage without any extra support really.

if -20g is the difference between winning and loosing, yeah why not.

For the other 99.999999999999999999999999% (approximately 😉 people riding, i’d say just leave em standard!

Marginal gains bigyinn!

Could cut 0.5 seconds off a 5 hour ride.

DrJon’s done this already: Linky. He got his down to 165gms, about 10 grams heavier than the Race pedal with a fair amount more platform.

A long time ago, it was a fairly common hack to file large chunks off the original ‘grenade’ SPDs – this was in the early to mid 90s. It always looked like a fair old faff, and back then (as now) I didn’t have the extra dosh to drop on a brand new pair of pedals just like that.

I’ve owned XTR pedals that have failed in the manner Njee describes, and Shimano’s importer gave my local shop a credit for the cost, as far as I can tell without question. They might think again if the pedals had been chopped around.

I suppose the question I’d want to ask is whether you are happy with all of the above before you go and chop up some very expensive pedals. If you are, go for it.

It was Christoph Sauser who did this. They now actually make a special version where the parts come hacked of straight from the factory Look pedals though.

Cut down Look pedals:

Cut down XTR pedals:

http://forums.mtbr.com/xc-racing-training/xtr-2011-pedals-first-impressions-660234.html

With that in mind, anyone tried Ritchey pedals

I have tried ritchey pro paradigms and didn’t get on with them, I found they were harder to get into, less secure and tried to eat through my shoes.

I tried with both shimano and ritchey cleats and it made little difference.

Bearing longevity used to be laughable in Ritchey V4s too, or rather bush longevity.

I’d just flog the trails and buy the Standard cageless pedals…

I really can’t see the value in the modification other than you end up with a slightly wider pedal body that gives little/no additional support…

Plus it’ll look shit if you just take a hacksaw to the pedal body.