[Product Review] PowerGrip Sports Pedal

Purchased at REI

Product Link: Power Grips Sport Pedal Kit

Purchase Price: $44.00 + tax

Personal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My intention for purchasing the Power Grip pedal kit was to start off with a 'secured' foot/pedal setup like a pedal+clip+shoe combination without the larger upfront investment to see if I like the feel of that kind of setup. After doing some research it seems that choosing this combination gets complex / expensive very quickly. The $44 dollar price tag made this choice a no-brainer, and the obvious cheaper option / worthy smaller investment.

The install was super easy and took less than 15 minutes. They come in the box full assembled so there was no setup out of the box. Simply unscrew the old pedals with a wrench and install the new Power Grip Pedals. The trickiest part is adjusting them to fit your feet. This is done with several screws on the sides of the pedal that allow you to better fit the strap to your specific shoe. I wear a size 11, Nike cross training shoe for riding my bike, and unfortunately is seems that my shoe may be a little wider than these straps are intended. The shoes do fit, don't get me wrong, but getting my feet into the straps is a little harder than I thought would be the case, fortunately they do sell an XL version of the straps which I have yet to try. The straps cross the pedal diagonally and the idea is that you insert your foot in a pigeon-toe manner, then straighten out to cinch the strap down on your shoe, giving you the additional power available with the up/down stroke of pedaling. 

Installed Angle 1

Installed Angle 2

The learning curve is fairly short, after only 2 rides, I really like the Power Grip Pedals and can easily see using them for a while and putting the Clip/shoe combo on hold for the foreseeable future. The power difference was fairly significant, using my Cyclemeter app for IPhone 4 app I was able to see that I've raised my mile per hour speed from a previous average of 11.5-12.5 up to 16.5mph at my peak on my last ride.

I'm very happy with my recent purchase, and plan to look into the XL Straps to allow me a little more foot room and ease of getting my feet in and out of the pedals. I only gave it a 4 of 5 stars because of the smaller straps, I feel that a size 11 shoe is pretty average size and would have liked to see them use a longer strap as a base configuration.

Finally, though I spent the $44.00 and feel that they were well worth it, I found that with super saver shipping you can get this same kit for a little over 5 dollars cheaper at Amazon. 

Thanks for reading my review and Happy Cycling.