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iSSi Trail Off-road Clipless Pedals in DL Green

Thanks to Dave Lunz for his report on the iSSi Trail Off-road Clipless Pedals you can read all about below!

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When the fine folks at iSSi pedals sent Sven unt Uncle Gomez a set of lime green Trail Off-road trail pedals to test, my name popped up right away for some reason! The first reason being I kinda have this thing for lime green parts on one of my bikes, the second being they knew I would install them on my beach and snow fatbike, (what you don’t have multiple fatbikes?) and they know I trash a lot of parts due to the conditions and these pedals are completely rebuildable!

Since the pedals are new the rebuilding will have to wait, on the bike they went!

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First impressions were, man those are sweet!

They also had a nice and roomy platform that didn’t look like it would get all clogged up with stuff like mud, sand, seaweed, snow, salt, slush, ice, toxic waste(?) and whatever else I happen to be riding in at the time.

The next thing I noticed was that they can be completely disassembled with like 5 tools, but since they were new they had to wait till they need it!

I installed them right at the end of winter the non-frozen beach test was first, this is where the sand, water, seaweed and, if we are riding in Zion, IL, the possibility of toxic waste comes in. I’m not one to baby my bike on the beach, when it’s hot I will often ride in the water too cool off and if there happens to be a pier to jump off well I’ll never ride past one of those without riding off it a few times.

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Photo credit: Dave Schlabowski

After a summer and fall of beach riding the bearings were still smooth, I usually have to replace or rehydrate my wheel and bottom bracket bearings and replace my derailleur pulleys to get ready for winter, it turns out the sand and water really reek havoc on the moving parts!

Now it was time to put the cleats on the Wolvehammers and get ready for winter, turns out with the wider boot and the standard axle there was some clearance issues between my boot and the crank arm, since I waited till the last minute to find this out I threw in some spacers and was off to the races.

Winter is always fun with clipless pedals. I’ve tried platforms and Keen boots but I was not a fan at all!

The previous winter I scored the Wolvehammers and paired them up with another clipless style platform pedal that seemed to work alright, they had  issues though, they got jammed up quickly and I had to kick the pedal a few times to clear them out, I would eventually get it to lock in but not very well, clipping out was easier though!

The iSSi pedals on the other hand seemed to clear the snow, ice and other assorted stuff very well, their clip and cleat design was probably the smoothest I’ve ever ridden, the engagement was solid and clipping out was never an issue.

Sadly, this last summer the bike never saw a beach due to high water levels, the trail fatty filled the void nicely though!

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I decided to order up the +6mm axles to get rid of the spacers and have a look inside and see how that was holding up. A quick trip to my LBS, (St)Allis Bike and Fitness, to order up the axles and score some lube for the winter and it was time to get the beach bike ready for winter.

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The bearings were still smooth as silk!!

The new axles came with new bearings, seals and an end cap.

Since I don’t have the proper tool to punch out the bearings and they still felt good I just switched the axles over.

That was easy enough, three common tools and the swap was complete with more clearance for the Wolvehammers!!!

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