Hope F22 flat pedal: initial riding impressions

The Hope F22 flatties arrived just before Christmas but despite kids, trips away and illness, we’ve still managed a few rides on them.

…

By singletrackross

Get the full story here:

Hope F22 flat pedal: initial riding impressions

Just to get in quick looking at all the PB comments looking at all the PB comments about lack of concavity (that a word?)…

Clearly not concaved like T-Macs, but the central ‘Y’ shape is clearly lower than the perimeter of the pedal. That combined with the shorter middle pins would give a little bit of shape.

As a big foot though, would be nice to see something bigger, will have to take a look in the shop when they appear.

Slightly annoyingly the long pins use a 2.5mm hex and the short pins use a 2mm hex

This annoys me more than I thought possible. Why would they do that? 2mm hex keys are a curse

looking at all the PB comments about lack of concavity

Not surprising but I think there is a fair bit of received wisdom and straight bollocks talked about pedal shape. Vaults don’t have a huge amount of concavity and the usually well reviewed Nukeproof Horizons have a pancake flat pedal body.

Yeah, concavity isn’t really the right word, it seems to have become more or less a shorthand for “my feet feel like they’re on the pins not on the body” and that’s about all sorts of things, pin placement and length, etc etc. So yeah a vault is concave and a horizon is flat but they both feel about the same because in both cases the pins around the edge have enough pressure on them to bite. Maybe a really good shape allows for the same grip and feel with less aggressive pins? But I’ve never found that goldilocks pedal.

I like the look of these tbh. They look less distinct than the old ones but that’s probably just convergent evolution, this is a shape that works, the F20 looked basically like they’d stuck extra bits in the middle because they were worried it wasn’t strong enough.

I know people like bolt-through pins but grub screws/open headed bolts have more grip than solid pins- seems almost like a throwback to the very first F20? That was a lesson they were pretty slow to learn last time, there was that whole fiasco where journalists were getting sent pins that the public couldn’t get, because the gen 1 pins basically didn’t grip.

All that said… These are bloody good and about 1/8th as expensive. though they have gone up £2 since I got mine.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003156561516.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.63552934bNkO4n&algo_pvid=d326fbc9-31f4-455f-8fcd-0287bfbe2af2&algo_exp_id=d326fbc9-31f4-455f-8fcd-0287bfbe2af2-0&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2212000031140233734%22%7D&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21GBP%2135.79%2117.54%21%21%21%21%21%402100b78b16733953638753337d06fd%2112000031140233734%21sea&curPageLogUid=i8pCZxo8Qgm3

Slightly annoyingly the long pins use a 2.5mm hex and the short pins use a 2mm hex.

Just like @honourablegeorge said, this is more than annoying. 2mm keys are a pain. And having to use 2 different keys if you’ve got a mix of pin lengths? That’s cruel.

I keep looking at these and I’d like to like them but I’m not sure about tall skinny pins. Skinny pins have a funny feel to me.

Also, if I do try a pair it will have to be silver as the graphics don’t stand out. Hope aren’t the best at graphics are they.

Re: graphics It’s pretty tricky how they etched “Hope” on the inside face of the body center piece/hub!

Slightly annoyingly the long pins use a 2.5mm hex and the short pins use a 2mm hex.

This is just bizarre for a company that manufactures its stuff in house. Is it a parts bin special?
Does the designer have schizophrenia? Did the work experience guy get assigned the short pins and nobody signed off his work?

How odd.

Yet look at Hope brakes and they’ve clearly learned that Tx works better than hex for the really small stuff.

Those pins are copied from Oneup alloy pedals but silver, they are savage, just standing over the bike if your pedal hits your calf they’ll leave their mark, luckily they’re so grippy I haven’t had the dreaded smack to the shim bone yet.

It’s nice to see a Hope product that is within my affordability range. They look good too.