Future Tour de France Tech: The Game-changing Pedals That Claim To Make You FASTER!

EXCLUSIVE: A closer look at the Ekoi PW8 pedals that have sparked interest from top Tour de France teams such as UAE Team Emirates and Ineos Grenadiers. Could this be the future of road bike pedals?

The best 2024 road bikes look quite a bit different to those of old, however, one bit of cycling tech that has stayed much the same is bike pedals…until now…

Are these the best bike pedals in the world and do you think we’ll see them being used in the Tour de France soon? Let us know below…

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whilst a modern bike barely resembles one from a few decades ago bike pedals have barely changed in the last 40 years that’s despite it being the part that all your power goes through that is until now because this is a new pw8 pedal and as you can see there like no other pedal system currently on the market this is the Shimano pedal that I usually use and if I put it next to the pw8 and you can see that the pw8 is much much bigger now what that does mean is that you also have to use a different set of shoes but according to eoy that hasn’t stopped the pwh from sparking interest from Top pro teams such as the inos graders and UAE team Emirates so are we about to see a whole pedal SL shoe Revolution well we’ve got exclusive access to the echo Engineers behind the system to try and find out maybe they’ll even let me take a set for a spin I’m looking forward to learning a bit more about these pedals because they are like nothing else I’ve ever seen before where did the concept come from true so um it’s a completely uh New Concept of pedal pedal system has not really U let’s say change or get big evolution since its creation basically of the the first automatic pedal in 1986 with with Luke so um so we are super happy with this uh with with this new system um this new system ID was to make a more performance uh pedal system so it’s really the the performance uh of the all uh shoe and pedal because the shoe and the pedal goes together differently of today where you can adapt basically everything and if you can adapt everything probably it means that it’s not Optimum MH so the target is really to have this going together and that the shoe and the pedal makes only one uh and it’s really the performance who which drive us during the the whole process so um I would say there is three main points at the moment on this first of all it’s super lightweight we have a titanium axis here so it makes it much lighter that than any other system if you combine the uh the overall and um you know uh if if you pedal for 6 hours like pros it’s roughly 30,000 time you raise your heel and it’s 30,000 time where raise less weight and this makes you more performance or let’s say you you uh you will uh save some energy exactly uh so this is one very good point the second point is that you are very close to the axis so so it makes a lower stack so of course for AO it’s much better than any other system and and we are proving this uh by by some test and second being uh closer to the axis makes your pedal stroke and pedal motion uh much more efficient and uh and uh fluid and last point is that the surface of of contact of the pedal and the and the sole is also uh bigger yeah and this have two interests the the power transfer but also the the feeling of stability that you will have uh between uh the shoe uh and the pedal um I’m not could be able to use my current cycling shoes with with this pedal system so what is the plan um will the pros all have to be in Eco shoes so uh absolutely the uh the system is different and you have to have shoe and pedal because this is the whole concept yeah uh after the pedal system is named pw8 yeah it comes from the 8 mm from the axis that that you are and let’s say that you have an eight shape if you look at it pw8 is a pedal uh system a new pedal system Echo is our first customer on that pedal system and and the first partner we have and uh in the future we are super open to to make it uh wider with with other brand who uh who are willing to uh to uh open some uh some soul matching with the system the settings of the system is um is much more simple compared to the current uh system uh basically you can do it in two step and really in 2D instead of having like this rotation of the usual so it’s quicker and more precise if you uh if you want to replace uh your and of course uh you have the ability to have floating so you can be uh like 100% fixed and uh going from 1.5 3 or 6° and uh having the lateral settings to uh uh have your shoe uh exactly as you want it to be on your on your bike and when we first wrote an article about these pedals I think I read about a an 8 watt saving now is that for where do you see the this pedal benefiting Riders it in steady state efforts or in Sprints or climbing we have seen 100% of the test we’ve made a benefit after a benefit always need to be put in perspective and definitely uh it’s not you put this every single Rider will save 8 watts and usually it will be also it can depend on the rider but uh but yes each time we’ve made some tests statistically it is more efficient and clearly performance has being a big a big part of Designing this pedal system um so do you see it just for pros or do you think in a few years time we might all be using this no I think we uh I mean our Target is really to to to make it as wide as possible because one of the uh super good Advantage for the average cyclist I mean for all cyclist uh is the fact that you can walk completely normally with that shoe and this makes uh in in the daily uh base a huge difference if you are living in a flat you have some stairs you are not anymore afraid of dropping the bags or falling down um and for pros it’s easy to get to the podium so it’s really a great uh a great uh system for that well thank you for joining us pH you’re aware um clearly you know a thing or two about putting out the Watts obviously you were a bit of a jack of all trades when uh when you’re in the proon how did you find the pedals for like sprinting climbing uh steady state efforts yeah really good uh I think it’s like uh good for every kind of efforts uh but I will say that personally I find uh the biggest Advantage was on the flat um but yeah of course also on sprinting I still do like a lot of wats for not so long anymore but uh I have still some Peaks so yeah still uh pushing good and I feel good with those those pedals even uh in in short efforts like really intense we’ve discussed one of the advantages of this pedal system is a lower stack height uh what does that mean for a rider today they always calculating the CDA so this is all what counts especially in TT but also on the road because you spend more time on the road bike so it will reduce your CDA because you will get more compact yeah because uh the combination of the pedal and the shoe gets uh one unit like it’s really you get lower so you have to adapt your saddle so all your body and and leg will be smaller so you take less wind you know from the front so there is a big Advantage also we speak about like still 8 mm it’s uh there’s a lot this is a lot yeah if you speak about uh how many hours of stretching you need to get 8 lower this is uh maybe 6 months of work or even more or or you will never get there by the the stretching so even with taping it’s it’s hard to get smaller so yeah if you can give the possibility to the Riders to get smaller they will uh always take it yeah it’s an entirely new cleat system exactly um and but I believe that you can still change the the float on that yeah I all my career like to have uh like with fix uh position uh but the advantage of uh this part this is sliding so you can go from inside to outside yeah and you can adjust like for me personally was one really important point because uh I had um some injury when I was younger playing football and my ligament from the foot are like uh quite loose yeah and uh today let’s say my if I walk my my foot will go like that right one one so I have to play with the the clits to to be straight so it is it’s a0 de but it’s yes but you can play with the the sliding the back uh the back part uh and then I can be still straight with with that system yeah so it’s uh it’s really good so and then also on the bottom we’ve got uh some vents how important is ventilation in in races yeah it’s very important because the insole is carbon so it’s like it when it’s like uh 30 deg or it can be a problem with overheating so ventilation is very important and so do you think that this technology um is going to not only make its way into the pelaton but for everyday Riders as well yeah I think so uh I think like uh if the the pros use it uh then the large public will also use it um this is uh maybe the the best way to to sell things you know like convinced by the use of the pros uh then like people will look into the magazine into the TV and see oh look uh this Rider use it so it’s a sign of uh quality yeah and I think this is also like that so we have to work to convince Pro uh and the best way is to have a good material because uh you know because before do you sign for a new new support new sponsor you you test the quality because of course money is important when you’re Pro but quality is more important so so a lot of teams now ask question about it because they they heard about uh us so it’s also good so we have a one of yeah like UA is also asking for example so we can dream big you know if we can sign a UAE yeah or even some Riders uh it can be the best publicity that would be really cool right well I’m going to go and give a set of these a go all right thank you very much for your time you’re welome cheers well I’ve had a chance to ride the pw8 for about an hour now and I have to say they feel quite a lot like normal pedals and I mean that only in a good way you can clip in you can clip out of them with with ease and the only real difference is how stable they feel um this wide platform body really does stop your foot from rocking um but yeah the shoes they’re easy to walk in I’ve been walking around on gravel sorry ecoy for uh messing up your carbon sols um but yeah they are easy to walk in I haven’t slipped over so that’s good and the float and everything works the same as my Shimano set um which is obviously very similar to look as well now although it’s hard to find any downsides out on the ride I’ve just ridden up quite a sizable climb in the south of France and it’s very warm it is also hard to determine the advantages other than the walking and the stability I’m not going to be able to notice any meaningful aerodynamic gain by using these pedals so we are going to have to rely on Eco numbers for that that said with no disadvantages I could I can absolutely see that the pros if these are proven to be faster will adopt this system so I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of these in the future as to whether me and you will be riding them in a few years time well I think that depends a lot on the price and for that we’re going to have to wait and see let us know what you think of the pw8 pedals down in the comments below as well as if you think this Tech is going to catch up for lots more cycling tech make sure you’re subscribed to the radc channel and if you enjoyed this content then please remember to give it a like we’ll see you next time