Boardman Road Team Pedals review
Bargain-priced Kéo-compatible pedals
GBP £25.00 RRP Skip to view deals
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Road pedals take a hell of a beating, so need to be tough, well sealed and – ideally – light. Well, these weigh 296g, which isn’t heavy for a budget pedal, and they come with quality dual-compound EPS-R cleats (Look Kéo classic style). Those letters give the game away on where the Boardmans come from – EPS-R is a product name from Taiwan’s Exustar.
The alloy bodies are finished in flat gloss black, and this lack of grip means they can be tricky to clip into when wet (though a strip of skateboard grip tape will cure this). The gloss paint easily chips and you’ll wear through the top finish to metal in no time too.
But the dual-compound cleats are very good, with a textured surface that goes some way to help maintain grip. The cleats offer seven degrees of float and weigh 46g a pair. Replacements cost £12.99. Entry and exit is met with a solid snap, tension can be adjusted via a 4mm Allen head adjuster with a gauge and the 60x89mm platform gives a solid base to really put the power down.
The CNC-machined chromoly axle runs on bushed and sealed bearings and they’ve stayed smooth, without developing any play or leaks. That’s obviously a good thing, more so when you consider that the pedal body is closed on the outer edge so they’re no easy way to access the bearings.
If you’re taking your first steps into clipless or are after a low-priced pair for your second bike, the Teams are a great option. Just be wary that these are slippery when wet.
Authors
Warren Rossiter is BikeRadar and Cycling Plus magazine’s senior technical editor for road and gravel. Having been testing bikes for more than 20 years, Warren has an encyclopedic knowledge of road cycling and has been the mastermind behind our Road Bike of the Year test for more than a decade. He’s also a regular presenter on the BikeRadar Podcast and on BikeRadar’s YouTube channel. In his time as a cycling journalist, Warren has written for Mountain Biking UK, What Mountain Bike, Urban Cyclist, Procycling, Cyclingnews, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike and T3. Over the years, Warren has written about thousands of bikes and tested more than 2,500 – from budget road bikes to five-figure superbikes. He has covered all the major innovations in cycling this century, and reported from launches, trade shows and industry events in Europe, Asia, Australia, North American and Africa. While Warren loves fast road bikes and the latest gravel bikes, he also believes electric bikes are the future of transport. You’ll regularly find him commuting on an ebike and he longs for the day when everyone else follows suit. You will find snaps of Warren’s daily rides on the Instagram account of our sister publication, Cycling Plus (@cyclingplus).
