Our Five Favorite MTB Flat Pedals (Best Flat Pedals Yet?) [Video]

In this segment of Our Five Favorites, we are taking a closer look at some of the top mountain bike flat pedals on the market. With rad companies like Crank Brothers, RaceFace, Deity, and DMR topping this list, we have some great platform pedals to choose from. Everyone is searching for something different in their flat pedals. No matter if you are looking for something with maximum grip, increased shoe feel, great versatility, or is cost friendly, our five favorites meet all of those needs. 

1. Crank Brothers Stamp Pedals

The first pedal on our list today is a new pedal for 2017 and has quickly become a favorite for all skill levels of riders out there. The new flat pedals from Crank Brothers have set the bar for quality in a platform pedal. The Stamp flat pedals have a thin profile, use 10 replaceable traction pins per side and have a concave shape to cup your feet to the pedal. One feature unique to the Stamp pedals is that they are available in two different sizes, small and large. The larger size platform is designed for shoe sizes 10 and up, while the small model is intended for shoe sizes 10 and below. Both sizes are available in anodized black and anodized red. 

2. Race Face Atlas Pedals

The entire Raceface Atlas line of products is designed around style and performance. The Atlas pedals are just that! These pedals are relatively thin and use a slightly concave profile. One feature unique to the Atlas pedal is that the traction pins on the leading edge and trailing edge are slightly angled towards the center of the pedal body. This is an effort to lock your grippy flat pedal shoes to the pedals. That's pretty sweet! The Atlas pedals use replaceable hex shaped traction pins and are available in six different colors: black, orange, purple, blue, green, and red. 

3. Deity Components Compound Platform

Next on our list are the Deity Compound Platform Pedals. For 2017, Deity revamped around 90% of their entire product line and the Compound pedal was one product that remained unchanged. The Compound pedals are one of the top-selling pedals we have and for good reason. The Nylon fiber composite pedal is incredibly durable and the replacement is easy to get to from the back side of the pedal. The most impressive thing about these pedals is that they retail for less than $50. You can't beat that! The Compound pedals are highly versatile and will fit right in at both your technical trails and local dirt jumps.  Deity offers the Compound pedals in five colors: black, orange, red, green, and blue. 

 4. DMR Vault Pedals

DMR has made a name for themselves with their Vault pedals. With riders like Brendan Fairclough and Andreu Lacondeguy riding Vault pedals, these flats are being pushed to the limits. The Vault pedals feature a traditional shape, have a tunable grip with 11 replaceable traction pins per side, and are easily serviceable. They are some of the most durable pedals out there and are among the best on this list. The Vault pedals utilize a 6061 aluminum pedal body and a 4041 chromoly steel spindle. DMR offers the Vault pedals in many color options including the oil slick Lacondeguy signature model. 

5. Race Face Chester Pedals

The Race Face Chester Pedals have a great value. The nylon composite body is durable and will glance right off of rocks and roots on the trail. The Chester pedal was Raceface's attempt to compete with the Deity Compound pedals. And they did just that! With a $50 price tag, replaceable traction pins, and replaceable sealed bearings, the Chester pedals check all the boxes. Now all you have to do is choose the color that matches your style the best! Read up on our review of these extremely affordable pedals.

Our Conclusion

With hundreds of options on the market, it is always hard to find exactly what might fit your exact needs when looking for a Flat Pedal. Having to factor in price, weight, sizing; you may have a hard time finding that perfect pedal. Fortunately, there are some cheaper options that perform really well, as well as a variety of sizes to fit almost any size shoe. These five pedals work incredibly well for us and fit perfectly into a category for grippy, light and wide pedals that don't necessarily require you to empty your wallet.

If you're one strange human and would like to read a transcript of the video above, continue reading below!

What's up guys, jeff here from worldwide Cyclery, and today we're gonna go over our five favorite MTB flat pedals. so as far as flat pedals go we're gonna kind of break this into two sections: the little bit pricier ones that are metal aluminum and then a little bit more affordable cheaper ones that are nylon composite or plastic maybe you know i don't really know exactly what it's made out of but seems like plastic to me but they're strong and never break so they're good people to make a pedal out of that forever first off race face atlas so gorgeous pedal sin comes in a bunch of different colors buck 53 for these things at least at the time of filming the cool part about alice other than them being it's super thin and having a really big bearing right here is they do have smooth pins so a lot of pedals i think everyone on this table has got a threaded pin the atlas has got a smooth pin and a smooth pin i think it digs into the rubber on your shoe a lot more than a threaded pin kind of hard to say i mean it's a pretty thin pin but these things make your you know they stick your feet really well and they will probably eat your shin worse than most pedals but they hook up and your feet stick to them and they work amazing they're rebuildable they sell a rebuild kit form so it's a pedal that you can buy and will last you a long time and when you do finally you know beat these things to hell and go through the bearings you can just buy a rebuild kit and read some more life in them so that's an aluminum pedal higher end 153 bucks next time you got is the crank brothers stamp so the stamp comes in a couple different sizes comes in a large and a small I think they probably should have called it just a regular and an extra large or a regular and a large or a large and an extra large I wouldn't really consider it a small pedal I believe this is a small one right here yeah these are so I've been riding these on my banshee AMP dirt jump bikes that I have right now and I've been riding these since day one on that thing and I love these pedals they're thin they're gorgeous they have a threaded pin on them you can adjust the height on those pins it's a lightweight steel bearing you can rebuild it they sell rebuild kit for it so it comes in a bunch of different colors they have a Dani maca skill or maca skill a lot of no one knows how to say that guy's last name they're really good trials Rider a guy that is super famous custom version for him and yeah the different sizes are kind of the key thing with the crank brothers stamp because if you're a bigger guy and you have a huge foot the large Crankbrothers stamp pedal is is ideal that really large pedal when you have a big foot works well I don't have a huge foot so I'm perfectly fine rotting the the small version which is kind of really the size of a normal pedal you can see it next to the Atlas so the Atlas is a smidge bigger but again the stamp small is I would kind of consider just a regular sized pedal not really a small pedal per se the other one that we're gonna talk about that's not on the table that you'll see an image of right now is the DMR volt so those are around one hundred and thirty four bucks kind of price fluctuates they're depending on the model and the color they make an oil slick version which looks absolutely badass they're a little taller thicker than the other pedals that I just talked about the Race Face Atlas and the Crankbrothers stamp same thing they have a rebuild kit forum and they're gorgeous and awesome pedals Brendan Fairclough phenomenal mountain biker he rides for DMR and I don't know if he had a say in helping design the volt pedals or not I know he's got a custom grip which is awesome but DMR volts are another top choice as far as like a higher end nice aluminum pedal and again those are about a 134 bucks and price kind of ranges depending on the color the next class we got a couple pedals here that are in the more affordable range under 50 bucks first one's a DD compounds so again it's a nylon composite this stuff when it came out this nylon composite was I think everyone's kind of a little skeptical on how sturdy and strong it was compared to metal obviously it still has a you know metal which I believe is a steel or chromoly spindle in there and that's where mo everything matters that's where all the weights going is on that spindle the actual nylon composite itself is proven to be incredibly tough and people been making pedals out of this now for mountain biking and BMX for years and I don't think I've ever ever seen one break or crack there they're pretty amazing and if you you know do some google reviews and browse around you will find a lot of long-term reviews on several nylon composite pedals I think these ones in specific and you'll see pictures of them just scratched up and beat up like crazy and they're still perfectly fine and they're just as durable is an aluminum pedal but they're a lot cheaper so this DD compound pedal is going for about 49 bucks of course steel bearing replaceable pins height adjustable pins super thin profile looks awesome yeah I mean for 50 bucks you really can't go wrong with this they're absolutely gorgeous and very a lot of value for your money right there the other contender when it comes to nylon pedals is a race face Chester so these are about 46 bucks and they come in a whole bunch of different colors I think all these pedals here come in a bunch of different colors depending on what fits your flavor Chester is probably one of the more popular pedals I've ever seen out there it's got a great you know thin profile to it a good design threaded pins their height adjustable so rebuild kit form of course it's a steel spindle with your bearings in there and for forty six bucks I mean these things just absolutely kind of dominate the field as far as price and performance and value race based Chester I think is gonna be like the most popular pedal when it comes to that so if you want an amazing flat pedal for a good price I mean we pretty much always recommend Race Face Chester's there's plenty of great pedals out there but think this this guy kind of reigns King as far as you know all those things that I just mentioned price and performance kind of mixed together and they look awesome and they're thin and sealed and rebuildable and all that so yeah that's about it for our five favorite MTB flat pedals please hit subscribe we love to put out some more MTB content and let us know how you like it let us know what pedals you're riding right now and if you have any of these and if you like them or if you hate them take it easy I know I'm doing this but you could use it for something out by commercial