Crank Brothers Mallet 3 pedal

(3) Gone were the hot spots my feet experienced the day before when I was practicing with my Candys (smaller, more XC-oriented

pedals). See, I have crappy feet. They often cramp when riding longer decents, especially in new-ish shoes (which these are to me).

Thankfully, the larger contact patch of the pedal on the sole of my shoe helped reduce cramping and pressure points to the point that both were non issues.

(4) Now, for the big question you’ve all been dying to ask: When standing on the pedal without being clipped in, was it better than any other clipless combo you’ve used before?

Standing on the pedal unclipped:

Here’s the deal: anytime you’ve got metal on the bottom of your shoe and you are standing on a metal pedal—unclipped—there is not going to be that locked down, ‘5.10 stealth rubber to high end flat pedal’ type of feel. Depending on how and where you stand on the pedal, it’s often going to feel a bit like you are walking around in metal baseball cleats on a newly waxed grocery store floor. After all, the engagement piece of the pedal (the part you clip into) sticks up higher than the pins, and unless your cleat is very recessed into the shoe, the cleat is going to contact the pedal interface more easily than you’d like it to when you’re not clipped in. This is actually a good thing; otherwise, getting in and out of this pedal would be a massive chore.

Feel aside, I did not blow off the pedal when unclipped at any point, and that’s the most important thing. Standing on the pedals unclipped may feel a bit unnerving, but they did a better job of keeping my foot on the platform than any other clipless I’d been on in the past.

On this point, the dirt at Winter Park is a little bit like ball bearings on top of hard pack, a far cry from what I’m used to in Jackson. This led me to unclip in far too many corners to dab, which caused me to ride section after section unclipped. Despite the feel of metal on metal slipperiness, I did not blow off my pedal once.

Even better, it felt like the design of the pedal was always “feeding” my cleat toward the pedal engagement. I’d come into a section unclipped, and without really trying to clip in, I’d somehow end up there.

I’ve also ridden the Mallet 3s with a more XC style shoe, and again noticed a reduction in hot spots on my foot when on long descents. This surprised me, since my XC style shoe has a fairly stiff sole which theoretically should reduce hot spots to begin with.

Of course, standing on the pedal, unclipped, in an XC shoe wasn’t as good as my Shimano DX, but it was far better than I would have imagined. The rubber parts of the sole find their way to the pins more easily than I’d have thought.

All in all, the pins do their job. Unlike the Shimano and Time platform style clipless I’ve run in the past where I was fairly likely to blow of the pedal if not clipped in, I haven’t had this happen once. That right there is an improvement for me. (However, if you’re already running the older version of the Mallet, I can’t see anything that would warrant an “upgrade,” but again, I haven’t ridden the older Mallet.)

Durability:

Durability has been good over the past three weeks, which is saying something, given my past history with pedals. I’ve smacked them hard on a few rocks, tossed my bike a few times, and generally abused them, yet the pedals continue to run true. Time will tell on this front and I’ll update down the line. But I can already tell you that Crank Brothers customer service is top notch: I had a new spindle within a week to replace the one that was threaded incorrectly.

Bottom line: I would say that these pedals are better than any other platform style clipless pedal I’ve ever run. They are well-priced, light enough to run as your everyday trail pedal (as I now do), offer good stability, and give the rider that extra bit of traction in those moments where you can’t quite clip in.