Some very clever titanium engineering has produced a pedal which is remarkably light – yet strong.
Carbon-fibre frames and components are nice, but those mountain bikers who obsess about all things industrial design, will always retain an affinity for titanium.
Notoriously difficult to fabricate and machine, titanium frames and components are rare but with 3D printing, there are new opportunities. And a German start-up is ready to exploit that, in the form of titanium pedals.
Cleverly named Titanum has partnered with Element 22 to produce amazingly lightweight pedals. The Titanum MyTi Ultra pedals and cleats manage to make the best of titanium’s strength-to-weight properties.
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Titanum’s MyTi Ultra pedals, which spin on a titanium axle, have no rider weight limit and come to only 100g for a pair. That makes them terrifically light and if you want to reduce rotational mass on your mountain bike, without inducing component fragility, these might just be the answer.
How do the German industrial designers at Titanum and Element 22 manage to produce a clipless pedal that weighs only 50g? The source material is 6Al/4V titanium and detailed strength modelling means that no unnecessary metal is added in the production process.
All the strength without the excess
The delicate and precise machining possible with 3D printing has allowed Element 22 to deliver on Titanum’s design specification, with a very exact engineering outcome. The result is a strong pedal, leveraging all the inherent advantages of using titanium, with no additional grams of material – as is often the case with more traditional methods of fabrication.
Beyond the amazingly impressive weight specification, Titanum has also designed its own clipless pedal interface. Using a leaf spring design, the Titanum MyTi Ultra pedal provides 6° of lateral ‘float’ when engaged and claims a disengagement angle of under 14°, which should make for a lot less anxiety when slowly traversing very technical terrain.
Titanum has validated its MyTi Ultra design and is now seeking Kickstarter support to secure production. The target launch price for these lightweight titanium pedals is €300.