The creation of the new PW8 pedal

“Don’t kill this journalist like you did the last one.”

Those were instructions from one Ekoi employee to the other. I had just ridden up Col de Testanier with Ludovic Miel, an in-house editor at the French cycling gear company. We had started at Ekoi’s headquarters in Fréjus and headed northeast toward the Mediterranean Sea. Testanier is a 5.4-km-long climb at an average gradient of 4.6 per cent that last appeared in the Tour des Alpes Maritimes et du Var in 2023. Miel was in fact taking it easy on me up the col. It was at the top of the climb that we met up with Maksymilian Gadomski, who, instead of tending to his duties as an export manager, was photographing the ride. Gadomski remembered another cycling journalist who nearly ran into trouble trying to follow Miel on a descent. Miel smiled, half shrugged, and then bombed downward.

It wasn’t on the roads that I nearly ate it. Close to Théoule-sur-Mer, Miel and I stopped at an observation platform with a view of Cannes and Monaco in the distance. I came down some stairs and as my shoes with Look Keo cleats touched the wet, linoleum-like surface of the platform, I slipped. Luckily, I caught myself in time. Miel didn’t lose traction at all. After I checked out the bottoms of his shoes, I could see why. He was set up for PW8 pedals.

The PW8 had made a splash three months before. The platforms were on the bikes of a few riders of the Nice Métropole Côte d’Azur team at Etoile de Bessèges. A few hours before the start of the race’s second stage, those riders were told that they couldn’t use their PW8s because they hadn’t been approved by the UCI. The riders had to scramble for new equipment, which included shoes because the product uses a cleat system that doesn’t resemble the three-bolt one of Shimano and Look cleats.

Miel, like the riders of Nice Métropole, had been testing PW8s. In fact, by May 2024, after about a year of using the pedals, he had put 15,000 km on them. Well, 15,069.08 km once we’d arrived back at Ekoi HQ. There I met with company president Jean-Christophe Rattel. He told me the epilogue of the Etoile de Bessèges pedal kerfuffle. The riders and the team, said Rattel, hadn’t realized that the platforms still had to be approved. About a week after the race, they were cleared for competition. “Now, we are in contact with UAE Team Emirates to test the product,” he said before revealing that Ineos-Grenadiers was keen to try out the PW8, too.

The new pedals were developed by Pascal Nobile, who had previously worked on pedals and ski bindings. He approached Rattel with the design. The Ekoi founder bought the patent and invested in its development, which took roughly two years. “It’s not profitable,” Rattel said. “But we want to bring something new and innovative to the market.”

Rattel then introduced me to Luca Viano, an engineer at Ekoi who could speak to the performance benefits of the platforms. The 8 in the name is for the number of watts the company says a rider will save with the new components. “The distance between the spindle and the ball of the foot is much reduced compared with traditional pedals,” Viano said. “So you have a more round, efficient pedal stroke rather than an elliptical one.”

Viano said the company had tests that showed the pedals were more aerodynamic than other models available. I had seen their increased traction in action first hand. The PW8 have bigger platforms than Shimano SPD-SL or Look Keo, which Viana says is another plus. “Being bigger means that you have less pressure on a single point, which increases comfort,” he said. “You might even be able to reduce the stiffness of a shoe’s outsole. Nowadays, you need very stiff outsoles to reduce flex because you have to push on small platforms. But with a large platform, soles could be softer and more comfortable, but you’d have the same performance because of the support over the larger surface.”

On the topic of shoes, adopters of the PW8 would have to get new shoes for the pedal’s specific retention system. There are no plans for an adapter for three-bolt shoes as it would negate many of the new component’s performance gains. Rattel pointed out that the pedals do not have Ekoi’s name on them, which he hoped will encourage other shoemakers to get on board. He said that at the time, one other brand was interested in designing compatible shoes, but it was too early to name it.

I was intrigued by the new pedals. While the company has many big claims for the product that I’m approaching with caution, I also feel Rattel and his staff are onto something. Look at the gravel space, for example. When Shimano launched its new GRX component line this past May, it paired its Deore XT pedals with the groupset. These are the platforms that cross country and cyclocross racers have been using for years, but I do feel they’re not the best for mixed-surface riding. Often, pro gravel riders are opting for the road-focused pedals for comfort, the wide connection and perceived efficiency. Of course, if they put their feet down in sticky mud, they could slip and have a heckuva time clipping back in.

Unfortunately, I left Ekoi without my own pair of pedals to test. My name is on the list, however. They are scheduled to hit the market in February, about a year after they “starred” at Etoile de Bessèges. I’m hoping to be one of the first riders to do extended testing of the PW8 in the snow.