Lateral pedals

[lim]

What do you guys think of this? Ran across this online and thought I’d share with you guys.

Having the pedals move horizontally with the natural pedaling stance of your feet might be amazing…

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[W Odie]

Interesting… I wonder if they would help alleviate my hip and lower back pain.

[PotomacCyclist]

Could be good, could be not so good. The lateral shift might help with uncomfortable points in the pedal stroke, but I’m wondering if just a straight lateral shift is good enough. Or should there be an angle shift of the pedal, compared to the axle of the pedal, for real flexibility? Does the lateral shifting reduce power and efficiency? I don’t know, either way. But if a company wants to manufacture and market these, they should do some quality studies on these issues.

I have sometimes wondered about having a weird sort of crank system, where both sides are angled up from the bottom bracket. (Not sure if this is realistic or mechanically possible, but this is just a thought experiment.) Or maybe the pedals can be angled up from the axle of the pedal. This might help some people, depending on the natural angle of the soles of the feet as they move through a circular leg motion. Perhaps all this is overly complicated (yes, I’m expecting certain comments here) or it would only benefit a small percentage of people, if any. But it’s something that I’ve thought about a couple times over the years. Not that often, but since this thread is already here…

[Author]

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