Review: Crankbrothers' Candy 7 Pedals Have Wings

Crankbrothers' pedals, much like the company itself, often elicit either a love or hate response from riders depending on their experiences and how much time they've spent reading forums. There have been some duds, no doubt about that, but their latest products have proven to be reliable, especially the new Synthesis wheels and Highline dropper post.





Construction

At the heart of the Candy pedal is the sprung wing assembly that sets all of Crankbrothers' clipless pedals apart from the SPD-compatible crowd. Given the shape of the mechanism, it's no surprise that their lighter weight cross-country pedal that goes without the platform is called the Eggbeater, and the Candy is essentially that pedal but with an aluminum body surrounding the stainless steel wings.

Those so-called wings are actually two separate pieces sitting perpendicular to each other and on a tube that can rotate within the cage. A stainless steel spring sits in the middle of it all, and there's really just four pieces to the clip mechanism in total, making it one of the simpler designs out there. It also means there is no way to preload the spring to adjust entry or release tension.




The Candy platform has chamfers everywhere to hopefully keep you moving forward when you snag it on a rock or root, but it's not the kind of thing you'd want to stand on for very long, especially since it tapers down towards the forward and rearward edges. The idea isn't to be a big downhill pedal, though, but rather to provide some extra support for your shoes by creating more contact area between the outsoles and the pedal body.


The body is split, too, with two long Torx-head screws tying each side together around the clip mechanism that rotates on two bushings within the body. Crankbrothers says that this makes the Candy four-sided like their Eggbeater pedal, but there are really only two sides to the Candy. Letting the mechanism spin inside the body should mean that mud flows through and falls right out, though, and unlike an SPD-type pedal, there's almost nowhere for mud to get stuck.




Internally, the 7 uses a steel axle with an inboard bushing, and there's one pint-sized sealed bearing that looks like it belongs on an R/C car out at the outboard end. An aluminum cap threads into the pedal body and snugs it down onto the axle, while a small nut beneath that ensures that nothing can come apart. It's also worth noting that Crankbrothers has made the bore large enough that you don't need a silly thin-walled socket (that's probably not where you left it last) to remove the nut - kudos, Crankbrothers.

Crankbrothers sells a ton of small bits on their website to keep their pedals running smoothly, with the Pedal Refresh Kit costing $24.99 USD and coming with bearings, bushings, seals, nuts, and a tool. Titanium spindles go for $150 USD, and the Long Spindle Upgrade Kit takes the Q-factor from 52mm stock to 57mm for $49.99. If your shoes have carbon soles, you might want to pick up the $9.99 Shoe Shields that keep the wings from digging into them (more on that later), and there are also four different cleat options to choose from.




Remember when I moaned about Crankbrothers' pedals not offering adjustable release tension? Instead, they've come up with four differently shaped brass cleats that provide different amounts of float and change the release angle. The standard, gold-colored cleats offer 6-degrees of float and let your feet out when they hit 15-degrees, but the bronze cleats will give you no float and the same 15-degrees until release. If you want to get out of the pedal sooner, the rose cleats give have 6-degree of float and a 10-degree release, or the silver cleats provide no float and the same 10-degree release angle. But wait, there's even more; you can also run the standard gold cleats, the ones that come stock with the Candy 7 pedal, in reverse (left cleat on the right shoe and vice versa) to get a 20-degree release angle.

When you combine all the cleat options, the longer spindles for a wider Q-factor, and the adjustable traction pads, it turns out the Candy is an extremely tuneable pedal design... You just have to take the time to set them up correctly.





Performance

Crankbrothers' pedals are probably the second most commonly used option out there, next to anything with that SPD acronym on it, but this was actually my first go with them. It didn't start well, either, but only because they have to be set-up correctly for them to work as intended, which I hadn't done. Ideally, there will be no gap between the steel wings and the sole of your shoes, and no gap between the body of the pedal and the lugs; this gives you the most support and eliminates that 'I'm standing on a ball bearing' feeling of all of your weight resting on the pedal's wings.




To adjust the gap between the shoe and pedal, Crankbrothers uses shims under their brass cleats and those aforementioned traction pads that sit on either side of the body. If the lugs of the shoe are resting on the pads and there's a gap between the wings and sole, even just a millimeter or two, you should fit a spacer under the cleat to bring it closer. But if you're clipped-in and there's a gap between the black pads and the lugs of the shoe, you need to install the taller 2mm pads, which is exactly what I did after using the Candy 7s for a while.




Without the taller pads, and my weight and the Giro shoe's carbon sole resting directly onto the wings, it felt a lot like I was standing on top of a tiny ball bearing while pedaling. The engagement was sloppy feeling, too, and I was pulling out of the pedal far too often. Turns out that was caused by user error, however, with a closer look revealing that I needed to use the taller, 2mm traction pads so the pedal body had more contact with my shoe.

What a massive difference it made, too.

With that initial sub-par set-up that certainly falls under the category of user error and nothing else, which is ridiculous because they come with great instructions, I wasn't that stoked about the performance. But with the taller pads installed and the cleats reversed to give me a 20-degree release angle instead of the standard 15-degrees, it was an entirely different story.




Compared to a pedal that uses an SPD mechanism, clipping into the Candy doesn't deliver that same 'ka-chung' feeling that tells you that you're now one with the bike. There's pretty much no audible click when it happens, and while it's certainly a bit vaguer than most others pedals out there, you can feel the cleats lock into the pedal's wings through the soles of your shoes. It's not better or worse, but it is different.

The standard gold-colored cleats that I'm using offer 6-degrees of float that feels quite unrestrictive, which is a good thing, and then the tension ramps up as you reach the release angle. That's 15-degrees with the left cleat on the left shoe and the right where it belongs.

More than a decade of using platform pedals exclusively means that I tend to use a lot of ''foot English'' when I'm riding; I'll angle my feet depending on what I'm doing, and sometimes it's enough for them to pop out of the pedal. But swapping the cleats around gave me 20-degrees to play with and eliminated the majority of the accidental releases.


When not clipped-in and standing on the mid-sized body, it certainly feels more small-sized than anything else. And this will be magnified if your shoes don't have flat bottoms like a skate-style shoe, but the body isn't there to stand on; get the Mallet DH pedals if that's what you want to do. The Candy's cage does provide a good amount of support when you're clipped in, however, which is exactly what it's designed to do.




Okay, onto the less good things. While not a knock against them, the design means that you must take the time to set them up correctly, which I didn't do initially. You should be doing that with any type of pedal, of course, but it's especially important with these.

My only real grumble with the pedals is that they can release your foot if the mechanism on the bottom of the pedal hits the ground or anything else. Because the wings are just two separate pieces with a spring between them, it can open if you hit the opposite side. This has happened a handful of times when I was in a rut and caught a pedal, and a few times when I took a pedal stroke too early and one hit the ground. Rider error, sure, but I still don't want to unclip.


The sealed bearing on the outboard end of the axle is a little worse for wear, too, with it being quite rusty on the outside and rough feeling on the inside. To be fair, I nearly built an ark for myself and the dogs this spring, so I'd have been surprised if it was still spinning smoothly. Aside from that, one of the aluminum caps did back off once and the pedal body shifted around on the axle, but things have been just fine on the reliability front otherwise. The body wouldn't have ever come off - the small nut is actually what holds it on - and a 6mm hex key fixed the issue in seconds.







Pinkbike's Take:

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Reviews and Tech Reviews Pedals Cranks CrankBrothers