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A majority of mountain bikers have one thing in common: flat pedals. They come in all kinds of colors, materials, and shapes. In this blog, we’re breaking down the difference between the two main shapes of flat pedals: concave and convex. Don’t worry, this isn’t a geometry class; it’s a mountain bike class, so let’s dive in.
Like a lot of you guys, I’ve got some old scars on my shins from riding flat pedals. Shinners are super painful and super annoying, so today, we’re here to put a stop to shinners. Well, I actually can’t guarantee that, but I can guarantee that you'll learn something about the shapes of flat pedals, and which kinds suit your riding style better, leading to fewer shinners. Flats may seem pretty simple at first glance, but slight differences in pedal geometry will suit some riders better than others, so listen up.
Tech Differences
Most flat pedals come in one of two shapes. Concave or convex. It’s been a long time since I took geometry in ninth grade, so let’s do a 10-second refresher on what those words mean. A concave shape curves inwards, with its thinnest section at the middle, while a convex shape curves outwards, with its thickest section at the middle. That same rule applies to flat pedals. If the middle of the pedal is higher than the edges, it’s convex. If the middle of the pedal is lower than the edges, then it’s concave. You can also have a completely “flat” flat pedal, where the whole pedal surface is at the same level as the axle. And there’s a fourth option that breaks the rules that I’ve just laid out, and that’s the new OneUp Wave pedal, which is both convex and concave simultaneously. It’s the first pedal we’ve seen with that kind of design, and we’ll talk more about it in just a bit.
For now, back to convex and concave. These two have been around forever, with brands offering countless pedals of each style over the years. Let’s take a closer look at the construction of both styles and what kind of advantages both pedals have.
At the center of any pedal is the axle, which is the limiting factor of how thin the center of a pedal can be. On convex pedals, the pedal body gets thinner the further it gets from the axle, while concave pedal bodies get thicker further from the axle. Less material means that convex pedals are often slightly lighter than concave pedals, and that an overall thinner pedal body is less likely to catch on any rocks or roots while riding. Crashes caused by pedal strikes can definitely be some of the most sudden and catastrophic explosions on the trail, so that’s definitely a point for the convex pedals.
When it comes to pure grip between your shoe and the pedal pins, there’s still debate about which style offers more grip. Personal preference is going to heavily influence which pedal you prefer, but overall, more riders will get maximum grip out of a concave pedal. The shallow bowl shape gives your feet more support, and you feel more like you’re sitting inside the pedal, rather than sitting on top of it. But some riders do prefer the convex shape, arguing that it fits in the arch of their foot, and they can get their feet to wrap around the pedals.
If you’re not sure if you’re someone who would prefer concave pedals or convex pedals, we’ve got a super simple method to help you figure out which is more likely to suit you and your riding style.
Riders who have the ball of their foot over the pedal spindle are more likely to prefer concave pedals, while riders who have the arch over the pedal spindle are more likely to prefer convex pedals. That isn’t necessarily going to be true for everyone, but it holds true for a large number of riders. Now that we have the basics covered, let’s talk about how these different pedal shapes feel while riding.
On Trail Differences
That’s enough for the classroom portion of the blog; let’s talk about how these different pedal styles are going to feel under your feet in three different riding scenarios. We’ll cover climbing, jumping, and tech to really figure out where each pedal style excels.
Climbing
To go down, you have to go up, and both convex and concave pedals will definitely get you to the top of the hill. While climbing, you need pedals that are both comfortable for your feet and grippy enough to make all the tech moves you’re going for. A comfortable pedal looks different to all kinds of riders, and if you’re not sure which style is better for you, we’re going to recommend that you follow the guidelines we talked about earlier.
While riding with flat pedals, going for a techy climb is when I really wish I were clipped in. I always pull my foot straight off the pedal when I switch to flats after a long stint of clipped-in riding, and it usually takes a couple of rides to get my brain recalibrated to flat pedals. A more grippy flat pedal is going to let you put more power down to clear an obstacle or bunny hop in awkward situations. I find that concave pedals give me better grip when sprinting up a loose rock face, and I have a slightly higher chance of clearing those tech moves with a grippy concave pedal. But if you’re just cruising up perfectly graded fireroads, then you don’t need the sharpest pins or the widest pedal in the world. Concave vs convex doesn’t really matter much in that situation, and you could probably have completely smooth plywood pedals and be just fine. Personally, I wouldn’t make my pedal purchasing decision purely on climbing performance, so let’s talk about descending.
Jumping
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For some riders, jumps are straight up terrifying, while other riders will go to Whistler and only ride A Line for 5 days straight. If you’re someone who’s lapping the jumps and potentially doing some aerial maneuvers that involve removing your feet from the pedals, then listen up. It’s been a couple of years since my slopestyle peak, but back in my youth, I was all about convex pedals while doing my stunts. I found that concave pedals would make it a little harder for me to get my feet off the pedals, and I am more comfortable taking my feet off with convex pedals. So if you’re trying to learn some tricks, I would recommend convex pedals over concave. But now that I’m not going for tricks these days, concave pedals do give more control in the air when I keep my feet attached directly to the pedals. Whether I’m trying to throw a whip or just survive a big, scary jump, I find that concave pedals can give me more control over the bike in the air, which in turn gives me more confidence. The jumps are fun, but at the end of the day, what most of us are looking for is confidence while descending rough trails. We want our feet to stay locked in place on those double blacks, and that’s what all these pedals were designed for after all, so let’s check it out. |
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Tech
In terms of pure grip, I get more grip from a concave pedal. It feels more natural to drop my heels with concave pedals and drive my feet into them, which is where flat pedal grip comes from. Getting the balls of my feet in the pocket of a concave pedal drives my heels down and keeps my weight pressed directly into the face of the pedal. With concave pedals, you get grip from both the shape of the pedal and the pins, while you're relying much more on the pins on a convex pedal to give you grip.
It’s definitely possible to drop your heels and press into a convex pedal, but I don’t feel as secure with the ball of my foot balancing on the axle without any support at the front or back of my foot. Because the front and back of the pedal fade away, all of my weight feels like it’s going into the pedal spindle instead of the pedal body. I just don’t get the same support from the pedal body on a convex pedal, and the raised front and back sections of a concave pedal give me lots of support to press into.
Unfortunately, our feet aren’t always in that perfect position. When you get a little wild and your feet get bounced around and land on the pedals off center, getting them back into that sweet spot isn’t easy. Sometimes you just have to ride it out with your feet all criss-crossed, and getting your feet uncriss-crossed isn’t always straightforward. If you’ve got a super grippy pedal, you’ve got to wait until the trail mellows out and you can lift your foot and put it back in the right place, whereas if you’ve got a less grippy pedal, you’ve got a better chance of shimmying back into position mid rock garden.
While you can end up in that compromised foot position with either pedal, I find that it’s less common with concave pedals. There are two ways your feet can get ejected from your pedals, and the first is rolling off either the front or back of the pedal. Rolling off the front is most likely to happen if you don’t have your heels dropped enough and you run the bike straight into a big impact, and rolling off the back can happen if you hit a big compression and straight up run out of grip between your shoe and your pedal. Rolling off the back is where some of the most memorable shinners often happen, and rolling forward can cause the less talked about but similarly annoying calfer. Concave pedals are much harder to roll off of because of the support that comes from the raised front and back of the pedal, whereas convex pedals don’t have as much support to keep your shoe in place. So if you’re trying to keep your shins stitch-free in the future, concave pedals are going to be my recommendation.
The other way your feet can get airborne is getting bounced straight off the pedal, and there’s no flat pedal style that can prevent that. If only there were some way to attach your shoe to your pedal so you never had to worry about your foot being in the wrong place or getting bounced off your pedal. A boy can dream!
You can also customize a pedal’s grip by playing with the pins. Every pedal uses removable or adjustable pins, so there’s lots of room for customization there. Most pins use either top-loading or back-loading pins, and both can easily be removed with a hex wrench, while back-loading pins can also be shortened by stacking washers behind the pin. Some pedals actually come with washers to shorten the pins from the factory, and you can take those out if you’re looking for more grip. Generally, I recommend leaving all the pins in for maximum grip, but if you really like the descending grip you get with a concave pedal, and wish you could adjust your foot a little more easily, you could remove or shorten your center pins to keep most of the grip but give your foot a little more movement. That’s just an example, and you can get as creative as you want with your pins.
So to sum it up, the shape of concave pedals is going to offer more grip, which is a good thing if you want your feet to stay in place while riding technical descents, and want to drop your heels like Sam Hill. Convex pedals won’t offer quite as much grip, but are a better option if you want to do some sick tricks, or like adjusting your foot position as you’re going down the trail.
Well, that’s what you can expect each pedal style to feel like on the trail, and hopefully that helped you figure out which is going to suit your riding style better. Next, let’s check out some of our favorite pedals that we carry here at The Lost Co, to help you with some ideas of which model of pedals to bolt to your bike.
Product Highlights
First, we’re going to look at the pedal that’s completely different from what we just talked about, the OneUp Wave pedal, and take a closer look at what makes this flat pedal so unique. Like I said earlier, it’s both concave and convex, aiming to be the best of both worlds. The front of the pedal is concave to keep your foot from rolling off the front, while the back of the pedal is convex to allow you to drop your heels and stay super planted.
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The two other flat pedals OneUp makes besides their Wave pedals are their very accurately named Composite Pedals and Aluminum Pedals. Both have a high point over the axle, and then slope away towards the front and back edges of the pedal. These two pedals are actually incredibly similar, with the same size and shape platform, and the same layout for their 10 pins per side. The aluminum pedals are slightly thinner, and they have this bearing bump right where they meet the crank. Personally, that bearing bump isn’t my favorite, so my recommendation for a convex pedal is actually the more affordable composite pedals that do not have the bearing bump. Regardless of which you choose, both are easily rebuildable and are priced just slightly below the competition, just like a lot of other OneUp products.
Before we get into concave pedals, and give a quick shoutout to one of my favorite but hard to categorize flat pedals, the Burgtec Penthouse Mk5. Burgtec markets this pedal as having some concavity, but if you look at it from the side profile, this hunk of metal is actually a little convex, with the pedal spindle being the high point of the pedal body. But if you look at it from an angle, the center of the pedal is the lowest point, making it concave. It’s hard to say what exactly this pedal is, but all you need to know is that after putting all these battle scars on my personal set, the Penthouse Mk5s feel more concave than convex.
These flat pedals have won more gold medals than any other this year, with Dan Booker claiming two Enduro World Cup wins with these pedals beneath his feet.
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Ok, moving on to concave pedals, we’ve got a ton of options from a ton of different brands, and there’s certainly no shortage of choice here. A lot of the pedals we have in front of us are riders’ favorite pedals, and they’ll tell you any other pedal on this list is completely unrideable. But these are actually all great pedals, and I think the majority of riders are going to really enjoy just about every one of them.
We’ll start with the most affordable concave pedals we sell, and these are the Deity Deftraps. Their composite construction helps keep the price and the weight down, and they’ve got only slightly less grip than the larger, more expensive metal pedals they’re sitting next to. If you’re a fan of composite pedals and you want the grip of a concave pedal, these Deity Deftraps are a great value and punch way above their weight.
A local company that’s been gaining traction recently is Tenet, and these are their Occult pedals. Tenet’s headquarters is just down the street from us, and the Occult pedals have a cult following. Maybe they haven’t been around long enough for that to be true, but these pedals are deep, offer a free rebuild after a year of riding, and are actually the most affordable metal pedal we’re looking at today. As far as value goes, it's incredibly difficult to look past the Tenet Occult pedals with their combination of grip, quality, and relatively low price.
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Next up is the PNW Loam pedal Gen 2, and their big party trick is these Tectonic pins. Most pedal pins either screw in from the front or they screw in from the back, but these actually screw in from the side. When you remove the little grub screw holding in the pin, this double-sided Tectonic pin comes out, and this is definitely the quickest pin swap out there, even if you’ve managed to fully smash it on a rock. 
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Back to Deity. They’re famous for their T-Mac pedal, which has been widely regarded as one of the grippiest pedals money can buy for a lot of years now. Our suspension tech Alex has been riding the T-Macs for years, and always comes back to them after trying other high-end flat pedals. But there are a lot of riders out there that don’t know that the T-Mac was updated just over a year ago. The Supervillain is the successor to the T-Mac, and it fills those very large shoes it leaves behind. It’s overall a more refined pedal, with a very deep concave profile, tons of pins, high-quality CNC work, and tons of anodized color options. Outside of my job here at The Lost Co, I am supported by Deity, so this is my personal flat pedal of choice, and lucky for me, it offers an insane amount of grip.
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Last but not least, we’re looking at the RaceFace Turbine pedal, which has won over the hearts of reviewers around the world. Race Face talks a lot about how this pedal is concave in several directions, and that bowl supports your foot in all directions. Whether you’re pushing laterally through a corner or just need your foot to stay planted in a straight line through a rock garden, the deep concave shape and sharp pins of the Raceface Turbine make this another great option for anyone looking for maximum grip.
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Conclusion
It's hard to get a flat pedal these days, but with all the options out there, it's important to get one that makes the most sense for you. Personal preference plays a huge role in which pedal will maximize your enjoyment on the trail, and hopefully, this blog has helped you understand how to choose the right pedal for you. It's kind of like a coil shock versus an air shock in that neither concave nor convex pedals are better for everyone, but everyone has their preference.
