Through Orange-Colored Pegs

To paraphrase my man Big L (1:52), Snafu done done it again.


Yep. See-through pegs. Apparently these "turned heads" at Interbike, despite the fact that I don't remember seeing them amongst the hundreds of product photos taken by guys at Ride, Dig and Fat. Oh well, could have been an oversight.

Or maybe it wasn't.

Unlike the Odyssey/G-Sport Plegs, which took forever to produce properly, went through multiple compounds, and didn't reach the market until over a year after they were first shown at Interbike (in '06) and more like two years since they were first developed, Snafu chose to use "injection-molded bulletproof polycarbonate plastic". Which sounds a lot to me like what was used to make Atomlab's much-maligned and short-lived Ballistic pedals (which were great except for when it came to, um, impacts) or Standard's Masterguard.

Were they tested? Of course! Apparently "SNAFU pros Matt Bischoff and Jeremiah Smith conducted a little stress test with our new pegs using a 10-ton tour bus, and the peg won." Which is great if you plan on getting run over by a 10-ton bus, but I'm not sure how it's supposed to show you how they'll hold up to, say, grinding concrete ledges or hitting rail uprights. Oh, and McGoo posted this creepy video where he submits them to the ever-important "deep throat" and "throw them in a parking lot" tests. I'm sure this is how most products are evaluated in the real world:

"Hey Tim, did you test that aileron?"
"Yes sir. Bill sucked on it, then we threw it around the parking lot for a while. Afterwards, I ran it over with my truck. Twice! It's still perfect."
"Fantastic. Bolt in on, will you? This bird's gotta be off the ground in an hour."

I'd be curious to know whether Snafu is using their own proprietary mix of polycarbonate, and how long it took for them to get it right. Or whether they just used something developed previously by someone else, like what Odyssey used for their clear pedals. Because if you read about polycarbonate, as tough at it is, it doesn't hold up well to abrasion. And once plastic gets abraded enough, it breaks. Think of how plastic pedals fail—and how quickly, if you grind them on rough surfaces. And pedals are both thicker and have chromoly spindles supporting them all the way through. (What's doubly weird is, unless I'm mistaken, Snafu doesn't even offer plastic pedals yet—these pegs will be their first polycarbonate product.)


Even Plegs haven't been the miracle product some hoped they'd be. They're slower than steel on some surfaces, wear down awfully fast on others, and occasionally fail catastrophically. If you land at an angle on something rough, you could carve a substantial groove after just one grind. I know about that through personal experience. And despite mention of it a long while back, Odyssey/G-Sport has yet to produce Plegs in any color other than black. You'd think if translucent pegs were a good idea, Odyssey would already be making them.

Look, you don't have to like Odyssey. You don't have to run their parts. But even if you're not a fan, you have to admit that they generally provide detailed and educated explanations of everything they do, whether it be a weird fork or sammich pedals (more on those later). New products get announced, and then aren't released for months, if not years—not until they're right. And their team rides them first. (Sometimes they still need tweaking even after that. See: Wombolts.)

Does that sound like Snafu's M.O.? I'll give you a hint: NO. These pegs are supposed to be out by the middle of November, and I don't recall ever seeing them (or even hearing word one about them) before Interbike. Nor do I recall seeing them on any Snafu pro's bike checks. (Not sure who would run them anyway. Would Brad Simms ride polycarbonate pegs? Morgan Wade? Dave Mirra?) That's not to say these pegs haven't been real-world tested. Maybe they have. But the testing hasn't been very—excuse the pun—transparent.

Show me some video of someone riding them. Let me hear what team guys think after riding them for a while. Heck, send a set to this guy. Until then they're just another gimmick, the BMX equivalent of this. Or this. Or these. Or maybe they're just another hoax.

(You know it's bad when The Come Up and I more or less agree on something.)

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