KIRKLAND, Wash., March 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Today, at the Taipei Cycle Show, Flatbike Pop-Off Pedals were announced as a winner of the 2025 Taipei Cycle d&i award for excellence in bicycle parts and components.

iF Design Asia, a subsidiary of iF International, adjudicated the entries for the 2025 Taiwan Cycle d&i awards along with experts in the cycling industry. In iF Design Asia’s own words:

Innovative R&D effectively enhances a company’s market competitiveness, drives the development of unique products and technologies, addresses diverse consumer needs, promotes industrial technological progress, and facilitates cross-industry collaboration.

This award aims to recognize outstanding innovations in bicycle technology and design, while encouraging companies to explore cutting-edge technologies and create high-quality products.

The design challenge

In designing removable pedals with a latch head that stays on the bike crank arm, Flatbike set out to address four problems at the same time:

• Bike storage and transportation. Spiky mountain bike pedals are great for traction during technical mountain bike rides. But during transportation or after the ride, these pedals can tear car upholstery, scratch car and bike paint, and injure anyone who walks by.

• Bike theft. In a time of portable, lithium-battery powered cutting tools, no lock is completely theft-proof. But a bike with pedals removed is much harder for a thief to ride away. Anyone looking for a quick getaway will likely choose another bike.

• Removable pedal latch reliability. Removable pedals already exist. But there is such an issue with pedals getting knocked off by feet in rough use that most other brands include warnings on the box, such as “not for athletic use.” Flatbike pedals needed to stay on, but also be destruction-tested to mountain bike standards.

• Removable latch ease of use. Paradoxically, even though these pedals needed to stay on better during a ride, they also needed to come off easier at the end of a ride. Anything that required two hands was ruled out of contention.

The power of a well-designed latch

A clear goal was to develop a removable pedal that excelled in athletic use.

Eli Baggenstos, head mechanic at Flatbike, had a basic observation that reduced the problem down to its simplest elements. “We realized that what people really needed was a different removable pedal latch, built around something that your hands can do that your feet cannot. And that’s pinching.”

A pinch-based latch system can be operated easily with one hand—just pinch and release. And yet, a latch head built around pinching also has two independent latch levers, both of which need to be pressed simultaneously, or the pedals stay on.

From there, the project progressed quickly, through ISO-4210 destruction testing, beta testing by mountain bikers and e-bikers in several countries, patenting, and a successful launch on Kickstarter. Along the way, customers added their own value observations, such as not needing a pedal wrench when traveling through TSA.

Flatbike is presenting Flatbike Pop-Off Pedals at the CABDA West Bike Shop Expo in Las Vegas March 26-27. Retailers or distributors interested in helping their customers solve the bike-storage challenge with rugged removable pedals should contact Jim VanBibber (jvanbibber@retailbound.com).

About Flatbike, Inc.

Founded in 2016, Flatbike is a Pacific Northwest company focused on simplifying bike storage and transportation. It offers folding bike stems and its own design of rugged removable pedals for any bike, as well as full-size folding bikes.

Learn more: https://flatbike.com/space-saving-components/

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SOURCE Flatbike, Inc.