Crank brothers Stamp 2 and HT PAO3A pedal review
In a recent poll on my instagram channel @ukgravelco I asked what things put people off trying a gravel bike. Overwhelmingly the highest results, apart from the cost of a gravel bike, was that people didn’t want to have to wear lycra and didn’t want to use clip in pedals.
Well spoiler alert from the start, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WEAR TIGHT CLOTHING OR USE CLIP IN PEDALS if you don’t want to. That is part of the beauty of gravel biking, because it’s relatively new there are no rules and long may this continue! As a clip in pedal user on the gravel bike myself it got me thinking that maybe I should try riding on the gravel bike with flat pedals to back up my above statement. I do use flat pedals when riding my mountain bike so I’m no stranger to the concept but that is used for a majority of off road riding. Gravel riding has a lot more potential tarmac riding (where i live at least) so that could make a difference. there was only one way to find out.
The guys at Extra UK and Ison Distribution the distributors of Crank Bros and HT respectively agreed to send me a pair of pedals. I decided to try an affordable pedal, the HT PAO3A (not the snazziest of titles) which at time of writing costs £60 at full RRP and the Crank Bros Stamp 2 (see what they did there?) at £100 RRP to see what the difference would be by spending a little more.
the Crank Bros Stamp 2 pedal is from their quite extensive flat pedal range which they have been producing for a long time, so they know what makes a good flat pedal. They come in two sizes, this version is the large and the basic rule of thumb is to size the pedals according to your shoe size, there’s a guide on the Crank Bros website for this. The Body of the pedal is made from aluminium. It comes with 10 10mm removeble pins per side, has a steel spindle and the pedal spins on an inner ignus bearing and twin cartridge bearings on the outside. They are only available in silver or black and have a 5 year warranty. They weigh 494g on my kitchen scales.
The shape of the body allows maximum mud shedding room and if you look from the side the pedal is concave, so the outer edge is higher than the spindle allowing your foot to “sit in” the pedal for maximum grip and security from slippage. it’s quite difficult to photograph this but check the video below for a better example of this.
the HT PAO3A pedal in contrast is made of glass reinforced nylon with two in mould pins and 8 replaceable pins per side. Again HT make a huge range of pedals and these come with DU bushings and one dual sealed bearing. The platform is just a hair smaller than the Stamp but weighs less at 351g on my not very accurate kitchen scale. the platform also has the concave shape that is essential in a flat pedal. It comes in just about every colour you can think of and as its “composite” (plastic) there’s no worry about it looking tatty after a few rock or gravel strikes as there’s no paint to flake off.
In use both pedals have performed flawlessly offering up oodles of grip in all situations. Now, as a clip in pedal user usually on the gravel bike, i found myself automaticaly twisting my foot to unclip such was the amount of adhesion to my foot when dismounting.
Pedal dynamics wise there’s a theory that clip in pedals are more efficient and give more power as you can push down and pull up but in the real world unless you are racing or analysing efficiency to a microscopic level I don’t think there’s a great difference, not one that would bother me out for a leisure ride anyway. Both these pedals shed mud 100% better than a clip in pedal. If you ride in the UK this is almost a year round problem. Clogged pedals and shoes can stop engagement between the rider and the pedal, not what you want in slippery downhil situations. Both the Crank Bros and HT pedals were there and accessible in all muddy foot out, flat out scenarios.
So which is the best? well there’s not a lot in it to be honest, the bearings in the Crank Bros pedal seem nicer and spin well without stiction, the HT bearings feel smooth but spin the pedal and it soon stops, this maybe though because the bearing seals are so good. The Crank bros pedal does feel more robust being made of metal and looks like it’d take more knocks at the expence of a bit of paint and are approx 100g over the HT but it does come with a 5 year warrant.
Grip wise there’s nothing in it though. Both are at the top of their game, so i guess it comes down to that warranty and the slightly nicer bearing for me to prefer the Stamp pedal, but then I can put up with silver, if you want a colour and pay a lot less ££ then there are no drawbacks to the HT pedal.
check out the video below to see the pedals in action
UK GRAVEL COLLECTIVE 