Does Pedal Kickback Actually Happen? 1

You have probably heard of pedal kickback. But, like me, you probably aren’t sure if it actually happens out on the trail. No amount of Pinkbike articles, YouTube videos, or trailside debates on the topic could really tell me if I ever experience it while riding. So I decided to directly measure pedal kickback events out on the trail.

I spent a few months developing a data acquisition system and a suite of software tools for the job. I made sensors for the bike that enabled me to compute when pedal kickback occurred while riding. Funnily enough, the most important of these sensors was a simple button on my handlebars. I pressed it when I suspected I felt pedal kickback at my feet. This “rider feedback” button is crucial because we can collect data all day long, but if we cannot ultimately correlate these quantitative results with any meaningful rider feedback, the data doesn’t really mean anything. We are generally saturated with data and yet starved for understanding—and for this test, what I craved was understanding.

I really had no idea what to expect from the results, but I had a hunch that occasional bouts of harshness felt at my feet while riding might be due to pedal kickback. I ran five laps at my local trail network and did two runs of a fairly large, slow-speed drop in the area. The general consensus is that slow-speed drops are where the rider is most liable to experience pedal kickback, so I was glad to get this data included in my field test.