I had the previous gen Mallets. No complaints except that the wings bend on hard rock strikes. I was using them for DH racing though so all out efforts. Trail riding on the Candys I didn't have that problem. I'm on XTR Trails now.
interested in trying some Crankbros mallets
I have been riding flat pedals for almost all of my time riding, except for riding road/gravel bikes on rare occasions. as i've gotten faster and more comfortable riding, i do notice that my feet tend to move around a bit at inopportune times, even with freerider pros and chromag daggas. I have been forcing myself to ride clipped in with some spd trail pedals (look en-rage) and a pair of crank brothers shoes i got last year, but i always find myself wondering about trying Mallets for their similar feel to flats, but i haven't picked up a pair yet as they are pretty expensive new and hard to find used locally. I am starting to get more comfortable riding clipped in (still won't ride anything too gnar), and im aware of the more vague feeling of clipping in/out with crank bros, but im wondering if anyone has any more input on this.
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Mallets are a great option, but so are Time MX or Speciales=both Times have a larger platform for support on long DH or out of the seat riding.
I can ride both flats or clips equally as well, but clips are way way better when pushing my technical and physical limits.
Seems everyone focuses on getting stuck in clips when things are hard/techy, but I'll argue for the flip side of slipping off flats when things are hard and you make mistakes in tech or on big landings.
Both work great-just different disciplines.
I notice very little difference in climbing efficiency between clips and flats.
I prefer flats for bikepacking and singlespeeding.
I prefer clips for trail riding and DH.
I can ride both flats or clips equally as well, but clips are way way better when pushing my technical and physical limits.
Seems everyone focuses on getting stuck in clips when things are hard/techy, but I'll argue for the flip side of slipping off flats when things are hard and you make mistakes in tech or on big landings.
Both work great-just different disciplines.
I notice very little difference in climbing efficiency between clips and flats.
I prefer flats for bikepacking and singlespeeding.
I prefer clips for trail riding and DH.
Interesting about the Times, although those are even more expensive haha. I find when im focused on riding i can ride intuitively clipped in, but yeah slipping off is less than ideal. Even lesser than ideal was unclipping during a descent and being unable to clip back in, so having the platforms of mallets or times would be nice for those times. I too notice little/no difference when climbing, aside from a little extra ease in picking the rear end up over roots and rocks but thats not a big deal with flats either.
Big fan of HT pedals. They took the best aspects of SPDs and crankbrothers and combined them for a mechanism that works better than either in my opinion. The mallet equivalent would be their X2 but for agro trail riding I prefer their T1's. They make a less fancy pair of both the X2's and T1's that you can find for around 80 bucks on eBay and stuff.
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Oh thats interesting. What about the HTs make them different than spd? they look fairly similar in terms of clip mechanism. my buddy was mentioning them today as well.Big fan of HT pedals. They took the best aspects of SPDs and crankbrothers and combined them for a mechanism that works better than either in my opinion. The mallet equivalent would be their X2 but for agro trail riding I prefer their T1's. They make a less fancy pair of both the X2's and T1's that you can find for around 80 bucks on eBay and stuff.
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The mallets are a great pedal and feel similar to a flat pedal when you get used to the clipping in and out. Crank Bros does offer an easy release cleat when takes less effort to get your foot out of if you are concerned about getting out of the clips. Choose the 6 deg float option if you do this for a bit of a natural feel.
As a long-time SPD (and more recently HT T1) user, I absolutely HATED the Mallet pedals. I didn’t notice the platform to be more “usable” despite the size and I found it took an extremely exaggerated motion to unclip. Sold them immediately for a huge loss.
Mallet Es on all my bikes, the main benefit vs flats in my mind is consistent foot position (not increased efficiency, bike control or anything like that). My feet come off instinctively in crashes/bails/when needed now, I don’t even notice it. Flats feel weird, I couldn’t imagine riding anything I perceive to be sketchy in them. The CB shoes mate nicely to the pedals; I have a spare set of shoes in reserve for when my current ones wear out, but they are going over a year strong at this point. The pedals are easy to service with the refresh kit, it includes the bushing/bearing removal/press tool. The cleats do wear more quickly than I would like, I’m on about a set of cleats per year. Highly recommend CB Mallets, as someone who switched to them from flats a few years ago.
I used the crank brothers shoes on saturday and had to switch to flats after 2 laps, the shoes became so uncomfortable for some reason. back to square one. i have some Look spd pedals that i'll try, hopefully with different shoes, this week to see if thats any better. I felt pretty good descending clipped in on saturday but it's annoying to suddenly become unclipped on a hard compression, and then struggle to get unclipped other times when i actually need to.
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