Redshift Mousetrap Pedal Adapter Review

Some folks ride gravel bikes with flat pedals and I’m not here to say that is the wrong way, infact I’ve tried it and it’s a perfectly acceptable way to ride any bicycle. In fact I published a video on the subject here Gravel biking on flat pedals

For those of us who use clip in pedals it’s not always convenient. When you want to pop to the shop for some milk, the pub without waddling like a penguin in your clipless compatible shoes and in my case when I have to park 1.5 miles away from work because there’s no parking on site. I don’t want to have to put on special shoes for such a short journey, then have to change into shoes suitable for work and have to store the “special shoes” somewhere and then of course have to reverse the process at the end of the shift.

Pre internet (yes kids there was a time before WiFi!) Shimano had a solution which was the quite frankly hideous PD22 pedal adapter. These were a struggle to clip into your pedal but that struggle was in no way at the level of purgatory that was the attempt to get the damn things back off again! Having to twist a hard plastic pedal with teeth jutting out cutting into your hand to the correct amount of degrees to attempt to release it with out the leverage of a foot inside a shoe was impossible without backing the spring tension off so far that when you eventually got to ride the pedal as intended it didn’t retain the shoe cleat at all! So to cut a long story short they were unusable. The PD22 has had many copies over the years from various companies but nearly all of them still need that twist action to remove them.

Redshift Sports, well known for their suspension stems, seatposts and the Kitchen sink and Topshelf bar may just have come up with the perfect solution.

The Redshift Mousetrap Pedal adapter doesn’t do anything different from all those previous pedals. It still fits to one side of your clip in pedal and supports any style of shoe. What it does (actually doesn’t) have is that need to twist the adapter to remove it.

You just lift the lever, place the adapter on the pedal, it even has “front” embossed into it so you can’t get it wrong, then when seated you just close the lever and the adaptor is locked securely to the pedal. Guess how you release it? Yes, pull the lever and off pops the adapter, simple but effective, aren’t all the best ideas like this?

Ok, so like any one sided pedal, the heavier side with the adapter will always swing to the bottom so you will have to learn to look down to ensure you flip the pedal over with your foot, but thats hardly a chore and soon becomes second nature. Worried about loosing one? no need they have a tiny magnet that sticks them together for storage.

Redshift say they are not recommended for off road use and you can see from the tread they wouldn’t be grippy in muddy conditions. That’s not to say I haven’t ridden them off road as there’s some cheeky singletrack on my “commute” that I can’t resist and they’ve been fine.

Don’t like the colour? there will be options with different colour levers. They are Shimano SPD compatible only at the moment but SPD-SL, Look Keo, and Crankbrothers compatible variants will be out in Autumn 2026.

You may not need these adapters but for those of us who use our bikes for lots of other things apart from weekend riding the Redshift Mousetrap pedal adapters are a great design and the perfect thing to keep in your work bag/car/van for those unexpected but essential rides for beer, cake and sadly to work.

for more details check out Redshift Sports