Review: Renthal's New Revo-F Flat Pedals

Priced at $159.95 USD and weighing in at 492 grams, the Renthal Revo-F pedals are far from being the cheapest or lightest option out there. But, as you can tell from the distinct lack of machining, weight was never really a priority in the design. Rather, Renthal wanted to deliver a premium pedal that offers outstanding durability, and that was easy to service at home, without the use of any specialist tools.


Details

The Renthal Revo-F has a 6061 aluminum body, with a 100mm x 104mm platform that is 18.5mm thick at its thickest point, and 10 round, threaded pins per side. The pedals are supplied with all pins at their tallest effective height of 5.5mm. They are nicely adjustable, however; effective pin heights of 2.5mm, 3.5mm, 4.5mm and 5.5mm are possible by virtue of two pin length options and 1mm washers. The pins thread in from underneath, so adding a washer underneath the bolt-head reduces the effective pin height by 1mm. They have all encountered a spot of Loctite, and are well secured therefore. They also have a relatively large bolt-head that uses a 3mm Allen, making them less liable to rounding.


Internally, we have a full length chromoly steel axle with three outboard cartridge bearings and a IGUS bushing with a snap ring. Two smaller bearings are stacked with a larger one sat outboard, made possible by that chunkier bit at the edge. There's a full-contact lip-seal on the inboard side to keep water and dirt ingress to a minimum, and the end-cap also has a rubber O-ring underneath it that forms an additional barrier at the other end.


Servicing should be a straightforward affair, requiring only a 6mm Allen to remove the end-cap, and a standard 8mm socket to remove the retainer nut. From there, you can slide the pedal body off the axle. The bushing comes away with the axle. So, unlike some pedals (DMR Vault, for example), no specialist bushing removal tool is required. The bearings can be knocked out with an 8mm Allen and a mallet. The two smaller ones can be pressed in with the retainer nut, and the larger outboard one is pressed in with the end-cap itself.

Now, about that dual-concave profile.

Largely speaking, the Revo-F has a dual-concave profile. From left-to-right, the outboard and inboard edges of the platform is 18.5mm thick, while the central axle-housing section is only 14mm thick. Along that central portion, that gives a concavity of 2.25mm (per side). The pedal body is flat along the front and rear edges.


The pedal body is concave in the fore-aft axis by virtue of the front and rear edges being 17mm thick, and the central portion being 14mm thick - that's a concavity of 1.5mm per side. We did note, however, that the fore-aft concavity is not consistent right across the pedal. That's because the outboard and inboard knuckles that deliver the lateral concavity sit higher than the front and rear edges. Considering the outboard edge alone, there is actually an ever so slight convex profile that the edge of your shoe will be subject to - but most of your foot will sit in the concave portion. I did wonder whether that raised portion could create a pressure point on the outboard edge of my foot while riding, but happily it did not.

Of course, the presence of the pins negates all of this somewhat. On the pedal as supplied, the central pins sit lower than the fore and aft rows of pins in the stock configuration, and that concavity can be maximized by making the central pins even shorter.


On Trail Performance

For context, my shoe size is a UK 5 (EU 37, US 7). I tested the Renthal Revo-F pedals exclusively using my go-to shoes; the FiveTen Freerider Pro. With that combo, all ten pins see some action on the sole of the shoe, albeit some of them are right on the edge. Riders with smaller feet may want to consider a pedal with a narrower platform (like the Crankbrothers Stamp 1 Small). I get on well with them myself, but there's no hard and fast rule when it comes to pedal size.


I spent most of the time riding the pedals with the pins set up in their stock configuration, with all ten at the tallest height of 5.5mm. Despite the presence of that raised outboard knuckle, I don't really feel it on the trail. Weighting the pedal, I can't detect the central axle-housing portion of the pedal under foot, indicating that the pressure is going almost exclusively through the platform's tall pins. The foot pedal connection has been acceptable for the most part, but I don't get the locked-in feel that I am accustomed to with the Crankbrothers Stamp 1 pedals - the pins of which are a couple of millimeters shorter. On some particularly high-speed, rough sections of downhill track, I did feel my rear foot start to creep forward on the pedal, which was a little unsettling.

I changed up the pin heights. My experience was much improved by running the rear row of pins tall (5.5mm), with the center pins a 4.5mm, and the front row at 3.5mm That makes some sense to me. If I look at the wear pattern on the bottom of my soles, wear is always worse in the spot where the rear row of pins sits, indicating these are the ones doing most of the work in the grip department. This is what I settled on, and I spent the rest of that particular shuttled-assisted session having no qualms about the foot-pedal connection.

Switching the orientation of pin heights, such that the tallest ones were in the front and the shortest ones were in the rear, led to a very poor experience where my foot would regularly disconnect from the pedal and creep forward.


Durability

I have all of 12 rides on the Revo-F pedals thus far, all of which have been in wet, muddy conditions. As you can see, the pedals have been smacked into rocks on a handful of occasions, with no ensuing drama. I'm pleased to report they are still spinning freely and no play has developed. Looking again at the internals, there is some discoloration of the grease on the inboard side evidencing minimal water and dirt ingress past the main seal, but further along the axle, the grease looks as fresh as ever.


Servicing should be a straightforward affair, requiring only a 6mm Allen to remove the end-cap, and a standard 8mm socket to remove the retainer nut. From there, you can slide the pedal body off the axle. The bushing comes away with the axle. If successful (as it was upon disassembling a fresh pedal), no special bushing removal tool will be required. The bearings can be knocked out with an 8mm Allen and a mallet. The two smaller ones can be pressed in with the retainer nut, and the larger outboard one is pressed in with the end-cap itself.

Unfortunately, on disassembly of the used pedal, the bushing did not self-extract as intended - it and the snap ring are still lodged inside the pedal body. Thus, a bushing removal tool will be required in this case. We reached out to Renthal on this issue:

"The issue with the snap ring is not something we have seen with any pre-production prototype or production test pedals, during the whole R&D and testing process. During the extensive field test period, we regularly had the riders send the pedals back, so we could disassemble them and examine the internals, before fielding them back out again. All these pedals disassembled as intended." - Renthal.

The pedals will be sent back to Renthal for inspection, and an update will be provided thereafter.

---

---

Pinkbike's Take

Posted In:
Reviews and Tech Reviews Pedals Renthal Renthal Revo F