What makes for a good flat pedal? Are metal flatties better than plastic flatties? Thick pins? Thin pins? Loads of pins? Minimal pins? Thin versus fat. Concavity issues.
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Hi welcome to Single Track World, I'm Hannah and I am a flat pedal rider
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Mine's Benji and I also ride flat pedals. The chances are if you buy a bike and it comes with some pedals it's going to come with something
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like this which is is basically just a bit crap fine for riding to the pub. I presume it's box
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ticking isn't it because you get reflectors and bell things you're obliged to have on your bike
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well you should have a bell on your bike they're useful but but these are not particularly useful
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for anything other than pootling along the c so we've got some flat pedals for you that
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we think are good or some features of flat pedals yes if you want to get rid of them because you
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realise they're not so good get rid of them or your pedals have gone all rattly so um so these
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ones you've been riding around on these ones haven't you yep so uh and we have not been riding
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around on these ones because these have some of the features that we you would you would not want
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so the thing about flat pedals is you want pins that are going to dig into your shoes yep um you
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want a shape that is going to accommodate your foot so that your foot sort of is captured by the
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pedal almost yep um and anyone one that's the right size as well so that it matches up to your
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feet because obviously we've all got different size shoes and feet and so it makes sense that
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the pedals kind of match that as well yep um and so this contains a number of features that are a
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bit bit rubbish really so there's a big lump in the middle here that's going to make it quite hard
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to engage your foot into the pins and the pedals because that's going to the shoe is going to hit
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the middle as well as as well as hitting the pins yeah and then these pins are not very sharp which
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is good for the skin on your shins but really i'm not convinced that's going to be that much better
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than that if you think about if you were to be walked along by someone wearing stilettos versus
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someone wearing cuban heels yeah okay one would hurt a lot more and have a lot more
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than anything else, wasn't it? Yeah. That's how pens work. So. That's science
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Science. Okay. Yeah. But you can have different ones. I'm glad you're not a science teacher
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You get banned really quick. So those are also really small platform as well, which I personally have never ridden the pedal
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that I thought was too big. Okay. So these are DMR vaults
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which are arguably like the classic flat pedal. Yeah. Lots of people
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Good feel. Buy these. Still the best feel. life for me. So these are actually my personal pedals that I bought when I first started mountain
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biking and they're still going. So they are the kind of classic flat pedal. They have replaceable
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pins which is good because if you break one or you lose one you can replace it. Quite a large
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platform. Yeah. Quite thick and quite wide. They're kind of like middling. I think they're 17
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mill body thick and you kind of get lots of different pins
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for them, ones that they come with both excellent names, there's king pins
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and there's terra pins and there's different length and different colours as well
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and this pedal has both ways of attaching a pin, you've got some
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that come through from the other side that's these ones on the edges here
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so you put them in through here and then your feet are going to stick
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onto the threads basically And you've got the ones here. The top loading
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And your feet are going to go onto the head of the bolt
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And I think that's got a lot to do with how good those bolts feel
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Because these are the aforementioned spiky stiletto style ones And these are more like your Cuban heel ones Those are fatter and don dig in as much so there a a blend of traction there combined with that dipped concavity and the general sizes
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and they do do a smaller one they do a volt midi i think that's a few millimeters smaller
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they know what they're doing they're doing pedals for an awful long time yeah so these ones you you
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can adjust them a bit as well you have the longer pins on the outside edge yeah and then the shorter
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pins on the inside to sort of exaggerate that if you want yeah or if you if you don't find that
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comfortable then you can you can move your pins around you can adjust them yeah um one thing to
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note though is if you do bash the pins uh like the top loading ones if you mess those up they can be
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a bit of a mission to get out now these ones also you can use a spanner on them so that's quite
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useful. A little socket set, yeah. Yeah, a little socket set or whatever. So, generally
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because the ones that get damaged are the ones that are four and a half. Like that one there, there's all
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bent. So the side one, I don't think really get damaged too much, do they? No. It could be really
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unfortunate. But the heads on these are tucked away so you're much less likely to
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kind of mash up the heads on them, aren't you? Yeah, I mean, if you bend that pedal, you can still get it out
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because you're going from the other side. Anyone who's a vault user will probably have a set that's
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like Trigger's broom. He would have replaced everything on them over the five years you've had them, apart from the colour of the cake
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This will be original, but you've probably got a new axle, new pins, new bearings, new bushes
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but the body will keep going. Yeah, and if you put Loctite on your pins, then you won't lose them
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as rapidly, as I discovered on my first ride. Yeah, if you get some new pedals, even ones that
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are really expensive, doesn't mean the pins are improperly, so before you put them on
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so before you go for a ride it's a boring old job because yeah it's like 40 things you have to
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check just go around each one because there will be a quarter of them won't be quite tight
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the vaults come with them all separate you have to get a little mini tiny inch when you put them
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all in together that's quite a nice little project so that's the that's the dmr vault and this is its
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uh composite fiber equivalence this one's metal yeah and this one is like it's not plastic but it's a
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It's a composite material. Informally known as plastic pedals, aren't they? I don't think there's much of a difference in the weight or anything
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No. And this one has the same shape and everything. Same profile, same slant and same pin arrangement
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So why would you want them made of this instead of metal? The main reason, I would think, I would think there might be a handful of grams lighter
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Sometimes you'd be surprised and plastic ones can be heavier than their alloy ones
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Doesn't make such an unpleasant scraping noise past rocks? Yes, there is a bit of a fact the way I think you do seem to, if you do hit a rock, a certain type of rock, plastic ones will glance off a bit more than metal ones
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But I think the overarching reasons to go for it is to be, I can't remember the RRP off the top of my head, but I mean proper metal vaults are getting on for 80, 90 quid aren't they and those won't be that much
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So and then another consideration of the pedal body shape is mud shedding isn't it
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So in these, you can potentially accrue a fair amount of mud inside them
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Whereas, for example, this one by PNW looks like it doesn't really have much by way of mud shelf
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No, not at all. It's much thinner, although it's still a really big platform
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I mean, if I use most of these two, really, that is a real mud trap on the end there
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It can particularly affect the performance. but when you're trying to clean it at the end of the ride, it's a bit of a pain to get that out
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There's no mud sockets on these. They are, I can't remember the thickness of the top of my brain
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but they look like they like 15 or something so they really thin When you get thin pedals you have two things to look for there the lack of concavity yep and there this bulge thing here which some people are just not gonna like yeah it really
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bothers me the ball of your foot over that bit in an old not an old but in that theory of ball of
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foot over axle that's going to be in the way if you put your whole foot on there that's where your
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your shoe has a little scallop in and it's fine. That's how I tend to ride
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So these are all right for me. I find them. Yeah. Whereas I find that I'm forever like on a pedal like that
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My foot never quite feels like it's got in the right place until it slides. And then I end up setting off down a hill with my foot at a funny angle or whatever
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I think a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of people who are riding bikes to the ball over the foot
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over the axle, probably shouldn't be doing that all the time. particularly downhill, but you just move it forward
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and realise, oh, it's so much more comfortable, so much more grip, cornering's low
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It's just that getting set off thing, that sometimes you're on something nagger-y or whatever
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and you don't quite get your foot in the right place. But those, to overcome the thinness of the pedal
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and the axle size in the middle, have absolute shin-killer, giant long fins
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Yeah, it's kind of unavoidable, I suppose, that if you want really grippy pedals
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they are going to have really big pins. So you get ones that are long and you get ones that are fatter
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and those ones are reasonably skinny. The ones that are really skinny are the real, like
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they really spike in your shoes, don't they? But they also, like, you don't have to sort of walk past them
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and they've bitten you. Yes, I mean, it's... We had some in the office
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Yeah. I wouldn't think it'd make any difference, would you? You'd think it must be one mil longer or something
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but they do grab hold of you. But as someone who rides in full-length trousers and usually knee-high socks
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possibly because of this, actually, I don't know, but I don't get too much scratchy injuries from pedals
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Yeah, just get them when you're pushing, doing something innocuous. But yeah, in terms of pins and things, I mean, these did come with
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and will come with if you get hold of them. P&W Loam, I think they're called. the pin there that sticks out like that and stops your foot sinking in so they were a bit
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uninspiring and not so good until that was removed and then your foot came in a bit more
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and you can finally pick up the bike a bit more you're more about you can be able to lift up the
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back of your bike really because you can scoop a bit more but yeah that bulge is the make or break
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if you don't like i like them because i like like have bikes really low bottom brackets and usually
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short cranks so but if you're a pedal striker then no probably not now these have kind of
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interesting pins they're they're different so you you load them through the pedal which means that
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the attachment is protected isn't it forever so you're not you should be able to get them out
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yeah forevermore unless you bend them horribly perhaps but be interesting to see how that works
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out yeah i've had been not about any of these as yet but you usually bend them straight um maybe
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with pliers and just break the broken bit off and then the bit inside you'll have to hope is
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all right to get out. Yeah not rounded out. Mainly if it's full of soil. Yeah. Put a little braddle in there if you
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know one of those. A little spiky needle thing. Clear them out and then put in your, because they're always really small
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yeah so like this one you load into the pedal this is a race yeah so you load it into the pedal
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and then that's where the the head of the screw is as well yeah so if you snap that or bend that
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or round it out or squish it or whatever it's going to be a hell of a thing to get it back out
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again because there nothing there not like a protected end um so that something to watch for especially if you out somewhere rocky isn it because that when you start really breaking the reason why they go for uh top loading pins is not any kind of cost cutting or anything like
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that i think the fact that it's got a hole on it makes them more just more grip right like when
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you've seen people have like when you see the warning videos where you should put bar ends in
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the end of your things because you get coarse you're coring your shoes that's what those are
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doing into your shoes so they kill your shoes really quick but they're really really really
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grippy those top loading pins so yeah that's why they've gone for some some without so and those
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ones come in different sizes that's that's the the big size isn't it this is the affect effect
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oh yeah so like if you've got big feet potentially that's what you'd be wanting there's some really
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good smaller pedals around now that are good for kids as well makes their bike kind of much more
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in proportion so yeah they're they're worse for getting injured pushing their bikes along hold it
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away from you more yeah but if they if their bike comes with something like this or your bike comes
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with something like this you're gonna do yourself other sorts of injuries like your feet sliding off
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and you're hitting the crossbar and that kind of thing so invest when you buy your bike choose
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any other pedal basically price-wise can vary a lot can't they i think these are
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all right i think these are ht they're about 40 quid and those are the best composite ones that i
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well best are my favorite ones i'm using some gamuts at the moment that i really like as well
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probably the cheapest replacement you're going to find for one of these yeah it's something that's
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composite but it's worth getting the replacement pins and not having one that's just got plastic
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yeah and avoid top loading unless you're really struggling for grip and look out for ones that
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don't have a big lump in the middle, or at least make sure that you can adjust your pins
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so that you can have them sticking up enough to overcome any lump that's in the middle
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What to look out for? I mean, those have moulded-in pins, which is usually like a red flag for
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no, don't do that. But those are so not near the point of danger
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Nothing really gets near them. They're all right. They don't have any there. Anywhere that's in the danger zone
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it's not good, Maverick, is metal and replaceable. I suppose there is an eco thing about plastic pedals
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Some people aren't going to like them because you can't do anything with them. So alloy ones
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If you're buying a bike that's come with this and you haven't already got a set of pedals, you've probably just spent all your money on the bike
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And so you're probably looking for a composite pedal that's about 40 quid, aren't you
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Yeah. And they will be so much better for your riding experience than these will
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And I think it's the first thing you should buy. You can ride a cheap but okay pedal with a pair of old trainers
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better than you can ride a pair of these with a pair of proper mountain bike shoes
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Yeah, well, definitely, yeah. Definitely, Benji agrees. Right, let's finish there. Those are awful on everything, aren't they
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I mean, I would say... These, these are awful on everything. Yeah, even if you put whatever, 510 or any kind of good shoe on those
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are just going to be rude. But these would be all right with a pair of..
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What do people ride in when you see them going around? Vans. Not quite. A pair of state shoes
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They're wearing like Tevas and things, aren't they? Yeah. Kind of might be all right
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Something without too much knobbly sole is what you want. Yeah, you want flat sole as possible
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As flat as possible. You've worn out old shoes. TK Maxx. And get yourself some Etnies
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We'll do shoes another time. We'll do shoes another time. It's a system, though. Stop making it more complicated
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Right, there you go. That could be the next one, can't it? Yeah, next time. Join us again for shoes or something else
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Yeah. All right. Bye. Bye
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