Superstar Nano Pedals long term test

It’s nice to see a long term review where the product is still available! These Superstar Nano pedals were bought in Oct 2011 and are still current…

They’ve been on the bike from new until now. I’ve taken them off because Teva were kind enough to send me a pair of their Pivot SPD shoes, so some suitable pedals were needed while I give the shoes a good test. Not sure if I’ll ever go back to SPDs permanently, but that’s a tangent we won’t go down at the mo…

These have been given good reviews elsewhere, suggesting they must be pretty decent & they’re also available under a few other brand names (usually for more cash)

This review is mainly looking at how they’re stood up to nearly 2 years of use, but here’s a bit of a description:

They have a decent area to them, some people find pedals like V12’s a bit small (I didn’t), but these should suit most feet. The pins seem a good length & there’s enough of them for good grip. I like thru pin pedals – although the grub screw hex type can have sightly more grip they do tend to damage easily & then you can’t always get them out. These are much easier to remove & replace. There are thinner pedals out there but at 17mm these get noticeably fewer rock strikes than pedals like the V12. Overall dimensions are 105x100x17mm. Weight is quoted at 499g & they’re fairly well sealed. Superstar say the body is concave – this is minimal, but whatever the shape, it suits me

With riding being ‘work’ they’ve had to put up with a fair bit of all kinds of stuff including a couple of coast to coasts where the mud wasn’t washed off for a week. They also get a fair bit of air time, partly teaching others how to jump & partly because if I see a take off point on the trail, well, it’d be rude not to…

The pics show that as with any anodised finish, cosmetic condition eventually deteriorates! However it took a while & riding in mud is more or less like taking wet & dry to a set of pedals! I like the used look though

So far these have had 1 change of pins & 1 service kit. The pin change was mainly a ‘just in case’ – I didn’t want to find that any were damaged enough to remove the thread from the pedal body. They started to develop some play recently, hence the service. Both jobs were done about 2 months ago & the old pins actually weren’t too bad. The service kit sorted the play & the axles weren’t worn. I thought the axles were perfectly straight, but it turned out that one side has a slight bend – not enough to feel when riding but you can see it when the axle spins as you re-attach them. This is almost certainly from the odd heavy landing, I would guess that a ‘wheels on the ground’ rider would have little chance of doing any damage. I could replace the axles as well, but at the moment they still feel fine

All in all, recommended. Oh and they come in lots of colours!