Who has the most early clipless pedals????

[FluffyChicken]

...
I've got some M737's and some 747's in a box labelled up as PD M525 clipless pedals, would the 525's be an even earlier clipless pedal?

M737 1991 groupsets (XT by numbering scheme)
a year later
M525 1992 groupsets (LX by " ")
was added to the line up.


M747 is 1995 groupset, numbering scheme say XT, but iirc though a bit late in the game for me was actually XTR and 737's stay around as XT ?

 

[stevek]

OK, I understood the prefix 5 meant that it was slightly lower in class than a 7 but the 25 bit indicated to me that it was earlier than a 37? Numerically and logically at the least... but apparently wrong

Thanks for the info Fluff

 

[GoldenEraMTB]

Weren't Shimano PD-M737's the first clipless ATB pedals? I think Look popped out with the first clipless road pedals ...maybe even as early as 84.
I had both the first year they were introduced.

This was my argument. Look was out on the road bikes first, but was slow in coming over to MTBs. When Look finally did it was with much buzz, but turned to be much ado about nothing, since they flopped. Mostly converted roadies bought them

From what I've learned over the years, Shimano made the pd-m737's as early as 1991 to be used with the XT and the first year XTR, but only sold them to wholesale/bike mfg's...until 93 or 94, then they were available for a year or two, before they switched over to the M747's for 1995/96.

Weren't Shimano PD-M737's the first clipless ATB pedals?

They missed the boat by a couple of years! Scott bought out on first in 1990 and then Grafton with the original Speed Trap, Look bought out their MTB clipless (read: a road clipless with a serrated plate on it for grip) in 1993 with Shimano not far off. As always, Shimano relied on the market to make mistakes so they could learn and copy before they entered.

There's a great history of pedals here:

http://www.speedplay.com/index.cfm?fuse ... museum.mtb

Thanks for the link

The Look statement was already corrected, now as for Grafton, did you have a year for them...those are incredibly hard to find; did they look like these:

As for the Scott pedals, I can't find them anywhere...do you have a pic?

sorry I concur, onza WERE rubbish. elastomers worked poorly for pedals (& suspension fork internals), axles snapping & elastomers cracking & disintegrating. early eggbeaters were probs the worst clipless pedals ever. more chance of the bushing seizing, causing the pedal body coming away from the axle than actually clipping in. original tioga were pretty poor too.

Similarly bad were the early look/campag ones - single sided, needed road drilled shoes and were as slippery as hell (a serrated side just fills with even more mud!). I had more ball/top tube interfaces with those than any that I used.
My favourites are still Speedplays, I'm still using a set of Magnums from very, very early on (1991ish) on one of my bikes and have various iterations on every one of my bikes

Yes, onza pedals felt good for a few good rides, then started acting up; upkeep was key.
Never had the speedplay magnums- stictly admired from a distance since they were way out of my pricerange.
Shimano- say what you will about them, but they were the best bang for this low income buck. I was a big fan of the 737 and 747 until the Time ATAC's came out

This thread turned out to be great...I wasn't expecting this kind of response. Thanks everyone...it's nice to be in the company of some retrogrouch bike geeks

 

[GoldenEraMTB]

Oh...on a whim and in the spirit of this thread, I went around the cave snapping pics of my various old school/early clipless pedals:

The only set of 737's I have left- they've been put to good use so don't look great, but they work great like butter:

Couple sets of 747's, equally used, but still going well:

a set of Ritchey's- don't much care for them, though I remember them being well regarded and copied by Wellgo for a time:

a couple sets of Onza's with blue and clear elastomers- they weren't the worse so long as kept well, but not nearly the best:

Just picked up a set of old eggbeaters- don't know if they are the vintage ones...might be, might not:

Bikepro has better pics of the 737's:

and here are the first Look's mentioned above:

along with the Look that saw a bit more popularity in the mid90s:

 

[stevek]

As far as I can tell the early Eggbeaters came with the little rubber bung fitted at the end. Later versions had a screw in cap that you could remove and fit a grease adapter to force grease through the pedal.

 

[magicmistertea]

sorry I concur, onza WERE rubbish.

were rubbish ?
does that mean they arnt rubbish anymore ?

anyway im sorry but you and lid obviously have 2 left feet
they are fine and thats that !!!
come on people.... anyone else going to back me up ?

 

[pete_mcc]

MOMBAT lists XT clipless as 1990 together with the Scott ones. Anorak fact: the prototype dual side entry clipless pedals were made for the big S by Frank the Welder.

I'm not sure they were a 1990 part though, I know there was mention of them late in 1990, maybe an early release of 1991 parts? M737 was listed in 1991 but not in 1990 where only the 730 was.

That said I wouldn't use the Scott ones if you paid me, they look lethal!!

 

[FluffyChicken]

MOMBAT lists XT clipless as 1990 together with the Scott ones. Anorak fact: the prototype dual side entry clipless pedals were made for the big S by Frank the Welder.

I'm not sure they were a 1990 part though, I know there was mention of them late in 1990, maybe an early release of 1991 parts? M737 was listed in 1991 but not in 1990 where only the 730 was.

That said I wouldn't use the Scott ones if you paid me, they look lethal!!

M737 where a 1991 groupset part, so released in 1990

 

[GoldenEraMTB]

With all this...what then is the concensus? 1990/91 the big S has the first functional clipless?

Grafton's set was functional, so what year was it first available? The Bikepro site gives details on it, but no date.

 

[fatfixie]

I got a NOS set of Cinelli M71's. made in the 70's, you need to reach down and manually unclip.......

Too scared to use em

ANdy